not know otherwise how to account for the fact that it is precisely those who think themselves “Bible Christians” who are farthest from accepting the explicit teaching of the Bible.  If there is anything plain in the New Testament it is that the whole teaching of our Lord is sacramental.  If anything is taught there one would think it was the nature and obligation of baptism, the Presence of our Lord in the Sacrament of the Altar, the gift of Confirmation, the meaning of absolution.  Yet it is to “Bible Christians” that sacraments appear to have no value, are things which can be dispensed with as mere ornaments of the Christian Religion.

I wonder if we have wholly got beyond that point of view?  I wonder if we have got a religious practice which is settled or one that is continually expanding?  I wonder if we force our meaning on the Bible or if we are trying to find therein new stimulus to action?  That in truth is the reason for reading the Holy Scriptures at all—­to find therein stimulus, stimulus for life; that we may see how little or how much our conduct conforms to the ideal set out there.  We do not read to learn a religion, but to learn to practice the religion that we already have.

Now to take just one point in illustration.  The commission of our Lord to His Church in the person of the Apostles was a commission to forgive sins.  “He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost:  whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained.”  As to how in detail, this commission is to be exercised is a matter for the Church to order as the circumstances of its life require.  As I read my Bible certain facts emerge:  I am a sinner; Christ died for my sins; He left power in His Church for the forgiveness of sin—­of my sin.  And then the question arises:  What is the bearing of all that on my personal practice?  Have I settled a practice for myself to which I am subjecting the teaching of the Bible and the Church?  Or am I alert to see a contrast or a contradiction between my practice and the teaching of the Bible and the Church, if such exist?  Now there are many people in the Church who make no use of the sacrament of penance, and there are many others who make use of it very sparingly.  It is clear that either they must be right, or the Bible and the Church must be right.  It is clear that such persons, to press it no farther, are imposing the interpretation of their own conduct on the teaching of the Christian Religion and asserting by their constant practice that that interpretation is quite inadequate, notwithstanding the contrary practice of the entire Catholic world.  That, to put it mildly, is a very peculiar intellectual and spiritual attitude.