Again not a single answer with an unequivocal, earnest “Yes.”  But again explanations were offered and in at least half the instances the sum of most of the answers was that Christ was the most perfect man that the world had seen and humanity’s greatest moral teacher.

“Third, Do you believe that when you die you will live again as a conscious intelligence, knowing who you are and who other people are?”

Again, not one answer was unconditionally affirmative.  “Of course they were not sure as a matter of knowledge.”  “Of course that could not be known positively.”  “On the whole, they were inclined to think so, but there were very stubborn, objections,” and so forth and so on.

The men to whom these questions were put were particularly high-grade ministers.  One of them had already won a distinguished reputation in New York and the New England states for his eloquence and piety.  Every one of them had had unusual successes with fashionable congregations.

But every one of them had noted an absence of real influence upon the hearts of their hearers and all thought that this same condition is spreading throughout the modern pulpit.

Yet not one of them suspected that the profound cause of what they called “the decay of faith” was, not in the world of men and women, but in themselves.  How could such priests of ice warm the souls of men?  How could such apostles of interrogation convert a world?

These were not examples, however; they were exceptions.  Most preachers believe that they actually know the truths they teach.  By and large, the twentieth century Christian ministry is sound and sure.  The missionary fire still burns in consecrated breasts.

And that is a lucky thing for the Christian world.  We Westerners—­we of America and Europe—­would go all to pieces otherwise.  You see we Occidentals have not eons of fatalistic paganism to fall back on as have the sons of the East.  They endure without our religion.  But we—­what would happen to us if Christianity did not unite, purify, and exalt us.

From the view-point of the layman then, yes and even far more from your own view-point, be sure of your faith, preparer for the pulpit.  Faith is only another word for power.

We see it in the small things of life.  Note the influence on his fellow citizens of a man who asserts something positively and heartily believes what he asserts, even though that thing be untrue and unwise.

We see it in the great things of history.  Witness the inferior mentality but the burning ardor of a Peter the Hermit, moving all Europe to the most extraordinary war the world has seen.  Consider Napoleon crossing the Alps—­an achievement all men said was impossible.  Impossible!  That word is found only in the dictionary of superstition.

But your faith, young man, you who are about to go into the Pulpit, does not deal with little things.  It is not interested even in the large affairs of statesmanship, as such.  Yet it embraces all matters.  It involves concerns more important than all history.