I am not disparaging emotion--God forbid--for I
believe that to a very large extent the peculiarity of Christian
teaching is just this, that it does bring emotion to bear upon the hard
grind of daily duty. But for all that, I am bound to say that this is a
danger which, in this day, by reason of certain tendencies in our
popular Christianity, is a very real one, and that you will find people
gushing in religious enthusiasm, and then going away to live very
questionable, and sometimes very mean, and sometimes even very gross and
sensual lives. The emotion is meant to spring from the creed, and it is
meant to be the middle term between the creed and the conduct. Why, we
have learnt to harness electricity to our tramcars, and to make it run
our messages, and light our homes, and that is like what we have to do
with the emotion without which a man's Christianity will be a poor,
scraggy thing. It is a good servant; it is a bad master. You do not show
yourselves to be Christians because you gush. You do not show yourselves
to be Christians because you can talk fervidly and feel deeply. Raptures
are all very well, but what we want is the grind of daily righteousness,
and doing little things because of the fear and the love of the Lord.

May I say again, my text suggests conduct, and not verbal worship. You
and I, in our adherence to a simpler, less ornate and aesthetic form of
devotion than prevails in the great Episcopal churches, are by no means
free from the danger which, in a more acute form, besets them, of
substituting participation in external acts of worship for daily
righteousness of life _Laborare est orare_--to work is to pray. That is
true with explanations, commentaries, and limitations. But I wonder how
many people there are who sing hymns which breathe aspirations and
wishes that their whole daily life contradicts. And I wonder how many of
us there are who seem to be joining in prayers that we never expect to
have answered, and would be very much astonished if the answers came,
and should not know what to do with if they did come. We live in one
line, and worship in exactly the opposite. Brethren, creed is necessary;
emotion is necessary; worship is necessary! But that on which these
three all converge, and for which they are, is daily life, plain,
practical righteousness.

II. Now let me say, secondly, that being righteous is the way to do
righteousness.

One of the great characteristics of New Testament tea