very age of which
the poet has told us:--

On that hard Pagan World disgust
And secret loathing fell;
Deep weariness and sated lust
Made human life a hell.

But the servants of the Galilean, more persecuted than any other men,
walked abroad with a gladness which was at once the perplexity and the
condemnation of the time. "Rejoice evermore" was a sacred command and
a glorious possibility of the new religion, for they were taught to
believe that "All things are yours and ye are Christ's and Christ is
God's"; they were assured that "Nothing shall be able to separate us
from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord"!

That was the _first_ century, and with us now is the twentieth; and it
is said that the burdens of men become more numerous and more heavy as
the years pass on. Older grows the world, but there is no lessening of
its care, no relief from its perplexity, its pain, its sorrow. As
civilisation becomes more complex the "drive" of life waxes ever more
and more fierce. Along with this complaint, it is said by some, that
in the Church there is less joy than in those old days--less, indeed,
than in times within the memory of the grey-haired among us. We who
are Methodists are often reminded of a former Methodism which was vocal
with praises and electric with joy. They whisper that it is different
with us now; that even the pulpit has lost its note of gladness. Care
sits upon the preacher's brow. The songs of Zion are timed to the
throb of hearts that lag for very weariness. "Some are sick and some
are sad." "Cares of to-day and burdens of to-morrow" haunt us in the
very means of grace, and little is said to make us forget. "Fightings
without and fears within," from these we seek deliverance in vain. The
prophet has forgotten how to comfort or, if he have not forgotten, he
thinks the task unworthy of hours which might be more learnedly and
impressively employed.

If we admit, as perhaps we may, the existence of a measure of truth in
this complaint, it will only be to claim that there is some excuse for
those whom it asperses. The intellectual problems bred of a
materialistic age have so compelled the preacher to the defence of the
walls of Zion that it may well have come to pass that the inhabitants
of the city--the men and women down in the streets and dwellings, for
the security of whom he has been contending--may have had to go short
of many things; a time of siege is a time