e made
on Vane by cleric after cleric, Anglican and Nonconformist, for close on
a couple of hours. Vane took it all very quietly, now smiling and now
looking grave almost to sadness, and when the last speaker had exhausted
his passion and his eloquence, and the President asked him to reply, he
got up and said in slow but grave and very clear tones:

"I have no reply to make to what I have heard, save to say that I have
heard with infinite sorrow from the lips of clergymen of every
denomination and shade of opinion a series of statements which not one
of them could justify from the teachings of Him who preached the Sermon
on the Mount. There is no other criterion of Christian faith and
doctrine than is to be found in the New Testament, and from the first
verse in the Gospel according to St. Matthew to the last in Revelations
there is not one word which contradicts what I have spoken, or which
supports what they have said.

"That is a serious thing to say, but I say it with full knowledge and
with perfect faith. I mean no personal offence. That would of course be
impossible under the circumstances; but it is also quite impossible for
me, after saying what I have said here and elsewhere, to argue seriously
with those who are by profession teachers and preachers of the
revelation of Jesus Christ--of the message of God to man by God
incarnate in the flesh--and who are yet able to reconcile in their own
souls the sayings of Jesus of Nazareth and the doings of twentieth
century Christianity. We have heard the words infidel and infidelity
used many times to-night. There is no infidelity in honest unbelief;
and, sorrowfully as I say it, I still feel it my duty to say it, that
there is more real infidelity inside the churches than there is outside,
for the worst and most damnable of all infidelities is that which says
with its lips 'Lord, Lord,' and does not with its heart and its hands do
that which He saith."

There was a little silence, a silence of astonishment on the one part of
the audience and of absolute stupefaction on the part of the other. Then
the storm of applause broke out once more, but there was no hissing
mingled with it this time. About a score of black-clad figures rose pale
and silent amidst the cheering throng and walked out. Their example was
followed by most of the West End Christians, including her ladyship of
Canore and her husband and daughters, whose curiosity had been more than
amply satisfied. The