that is more far-reaching than that—­to be my best not simply for my own sake, but for the sake of the world into which, setting my best, I shall make that world more complete, I shall do my little part to renew and to recreate it in the image of God?  That is the law of my existence.  And the man that makes that the law of his existence neither neglects himself nor his fellow-men, neither becomes the self-absorbed student and cultivator of his own life upon the one hand, nor does he become, abandoning himself, simply the wasting benefactor of his brethren upon the other.  You can help your fellow-men:  you must help your fellow-men; but the only way you can help them is by being the noblest and the best man that it is possible for you to be.  I watch the workman build upon the building which by and by is to soar into the skies, to toss its pinnacles up to the heaven, and I see him looking up and wondering where those pinnacles are to be, thinking how high they are to be, measuring the feet, wondering how they are to be built, and all the time he is cramming a rotten stone into the building just where he has set to work.  Let him forget the pinnacles, if he will, or hold only the floating image of them in his imagination for his inspiration; but the thing that he must do is to put a brave, strong soul, an honest and substantial life into the building just where he is now at work.

It seems to me that that comes home to us all.  Men are questioning now as they never have questioned before whether Christianity is indeed the true religion which is to be the salvation of the world.  They are feeling how the world needs salvation, how it needs regeneration, how it is wrong and bad all through and through, mixed with the good that is in it everywhere.  Everywhere there is the good and the bad, and the great question that is on men’s minds to-day, as I believe it has never been upon men’s minds before, is this:  Is this Christian religion, with its high pretensions, this Christian life that claims so much for itself, is it competent for the task that it has undertaken to do?  Can it meet all these human problems, and relieve all these human miseries, and fulfil all these human hopes?  It is the old story over again, when John the Baptist, puzzled in his prison, said to Jesus, “Art thou He that should come? or look we for another?” It seems to me that the Christian Church is hearing that cry in its ears to-day:  “Art thou He that should come?” Can you do this which the world unmistakably needs to be done?

Christian men, it is for us to give our bit of answer to that question.  It is for us, in whom the Christian Church is at this moment partially embodied, to declare that Christianity, that the Christian faith, the Christian manhood, can do that for the world which the world needs.  You say, “What can I do?” You can furnish one Christian life.  You can furnish a life so faithful to every duty, so ready for every service, so determined not to commit every sin, that