No readjustment is ever required on behalf of the Star.  That is one great fixed point in this shifting universe.  But the world moves.  And each day, each hour, demands a further motion and readjustment for the soul.  A telescope in an observatory follows a star by clockwork, but the clockwork of the soul is called the Will.  Hence, while the soul in passivity reflects the Image of the Lord, the Will in intense activity holds the mirror in position lest the drifting motion of the world bear it beyond the line of vision.  To “follow Christ” is largely to keep the soul in such position as will allow for the motion of the earth.  And this calculated counteracting of the movements of the world, this holding of the mirror exactly opposite to the Mirrored, this steadying of the faculties unerringly through cloud and earthquake, fire and sword, is the stupendous co-operating labor of the Will.  It is all man’s work.  It is all Christ’s work.  In practice it is both; in theory it is both.  But the wise man will say in practice, “It depends upon myself.”

In the Gallerie des Beaux Arts in Paris there stands a famous statue.  It was the last work of a great genius, who, like many a genius, was very poor and lived in a garret, which served as a studio and sleeping-room alike.  When the statue was all but finished, one midnight a sudden frost fell upon Paris.  The sculptor lay awake in the fireless room and thought of the still moist clay, thought how the water would freeze in the pores and destroy in an hour the dream of his life.  So the old man rose from his couch and heaped the bed-clothes reverently round his work.  In the morning when the neighbors entered the room the sculptor was dead, but the statue was saved!

The Image of Christ that is forming within us—­that is life’s one charge.  Let every project stand aside for that.  The spirit of God who brooded upon the waters thousands of years ago, is busy now creating men, within these commonplace lives of ours, in the image of God.  “Till Christ be formed,” no man’s work is finished, no religion crowned, no life has fulfilled its end.  Is the infinite task begun?  When, how, are we to be different?  Time cannot change men.  Death cannot change men.  Christ can.  Wherefore put on Christ.

DEALING WITH DOUBT.

There is a subject which I think workers amongst young men cannot afford to keep out of sight—­I mean the subject of “Doubt.”  We are forced to face that subject.  We have no choice.  I would rather let it alone; but every day of my life I meet men who doubt, and I am quite sure that most Christian workers among men have innumerable interviews every year with men who raise skeptical difficulties about religion.

Now it becomes a matter of great practical importance that we should know how to deal wisely with these.  Upon the whole, I think these are the best men in the country.  I speak of my own country.  I speak of the universities with which I am familiar, and I say that the men who are perplexed,—­the men who come to you with serious and honest difficulties,—­are the best men.  They are men of intellectual honesty, and cannot allow themselves to be put to rest by words, or phrases, or traditions, or theologies, but who must get to the bottom of things for themselves.  And if I am not mistaken,