Did you ever consider the difference between a real flower and a wax imitation?  The latter may be quite as beautiful.  It may deceive you at first.  And yet when you discover the deception you are disappointed.  “The lack of fragrance,” Jennie suggests.  No! the flower may be odorless.  It is the lack of life.  I do not know what there is in that mystic life that should make such a difference.  But I am sure that the charm of the flower is in its life.

The most beautiful statue that Powers ever chiseled does not compare for grace and beauty with the Divine model.  The same mystic element of life is wanting.

There is life in Maurice Mapleson’s sermons.  What do I mean by life?  Earnestness?  No!  Mr. Work was earnest.  But this mysterious life was wanting.  I can feel it better than I can define it.  It is not in the sermon.  It is in the man.  I get new information from Dr. Argure.  I do not get much new information from Maurice Mapleson.  I used to get new ideas occasionally from Mr. Work.  I rarely get a new idea from Maurice Mapleson.  But I get new life, and that is what I most want.

This element of life enters into all his work.  It is in the man rather than in his productions.

Our prayer-meetings have improved wonderfully since he came.  “How do you prepare for the prayer-meeting?” I asked him the other day.

“By an hour of sleep and an hour of prayer,” he replied.  “I always try to go into the meeting fresh.”

And he succeeds.  His coming into the meeting is like the coming of Spring.  He brings an atmosphere with him.  It is indescribable, but its effect is marvelous.  Jennie says she never understood before as she does now what was meant by the declaration in Acts concerning the Apostles, that though they were unlearned men, the people took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus.

And it is this life which makes him so admirable as a pastor.  “Is he social?” a friend asked me the other day.  Yes.  He is social.  But that is not all.  Mr. Work was social.  But he was always a minister.  He went about the streets in a metaphysical white choker and black gown.  He was everywhere professional.  When he opened the subject of personal religion he did it with an introduction as formal and stately as that with which he habitually began his sermons.  He formally inducted you into the witness box and commenced a professional inquisition on the state of your soul.  I confess I have no fancy for that sort of Presbyterian confessional.  I like the Papal confessional better.  It does not invade your house and attack you with its questionings when you are in no mood for them.  I told Mr. Work so once, whereat he was greatly shocked and somewhat indignant.

Mr. Uncannon too was very social.  But he was never a minister.  Outside the pulpit he never introduced the subject of religion.  I think it is perfectly safe to say that no one would have taken knowledge of him that he had been with Jesus.  As to pastoral calls he expressly disavowed any intention of making any.  “I have no time,” said he, “for gadding about and spiritual gossiping.  It’s as much as I can do to get up my two sermons a week.”