“Yes, it is a strange thing, but I affirm it true,—­that none of you know anything whatever about the contents of this small volume which is the foundation of the Christian Faith!  You never read it yourselves,—­and if we priests read it to you, you never remember it!  It is a locked Mystery,—­perhaps, for all we know, the greatest mystery in the world,—­and the one most worth probing!  For the days seem to be coming, if they have not already come, which were prophesied by St. John the Divine, whom certain ‘clever’ men of the time have set down as mad;—­days which were described as ’shaking the powers of heaven and creating confusion on the earth.’  St. John said some strange things; one thing in particular, concerning this very book, which reads thus;—­’I saw in the right hand of Him that sat upon the throne a book sealed with seven seals.  And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice; Who is worthy to open and to loose the seals thereof?  And no man in heaven or in earth was able to open the book neither to look thereon.  And I wept much because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look thereon.’  But St. John the Divine was mad, we are told,—­madness and inspiration being judged as one and the same thing.  Well, if in these statements he is supposed to prove his madness, I consider a doubt must be set upon everyone’s sanity.  For his words are an exact description of the present period of the world’s existence and its attitude towards the Gospel of Christ,—­ ’no man is found worthy to loose the seals of the book or to look thereon.’  But I am not going to talk to you about the seven seals.  They adequately represent our favourite ‘seven deadly sins,’ which have kept the book closed since the days of the early martyrs;—­and are likely to keep it closed still.  Nor shall I speak of our unworthiness to read what we have never taken the trouble to rightly understand,—­for all this would be waste of time.  It is part of our social sham to pretend we know the Gospel,—­and it is a still greater sham to assume that we have ever tried in the smallest degree to follow its teaching.  What we know of these teachings has influenced us unconsciously, but the sayings in the Gospel of Christ are in very truth as enveloped in mystery to each separate individual reader as the oracles of the ancient Egyptians were to the outside multitude.  And why?  Merely because, to comprehend the teaching of Jesus we should have to think,—­and we all hate thinking.  It is too much exertion,—­and exertion itself is unpleasant.  A quarter of an hour’s hard thinking will convince each one of us that he or she is a very worthless and ridiculous person, and we strongly object to any process which will, in itself, bring us to that conclusion.  I say ‘we’ object,—­that is, I and you; particularly I. I admit at once that to appear worthless and ridiculous to the world has always