alike shows darker signs of degeneration with the
coming of each succeeding day.

Now, we are of those who, while trying to look facts in the face,
endeavour, also, not to see double and to keep heart of hope. It is
easy to make too much of statistics, and _very_ easy, in a moment of
depression, to come to conclusions concerning the state of the Church,
and the life of the world, which a day of brighter and truer mood will
greatly modify. There is no cause for either panic or pessimism, but
there is cause for the asking of questions as to reasons for the
condition of things, for the making of suggestions for their
improvement.

And of such questions, many have been asked, questions relating to the
Church, her methods, her teaching, her attitude to the world around
her, to great social and moral issues. Of suggestions, too, there have
been many, and many of them have been seriously received and adopted as
the starting points of changes and modifications, the purpose of which
has been to stay the progress of alleged decline in this field or in
that. Beyond all admiration, has been the willingness to make
sacrifices and put forth efforts to win back the wanderer to the fold
which have been exhibited by those to whom changes are not always the
most agreeable things in the world. The unfortunate thing is that,
notwithstanding all that has been done, it cannot be claimed that the
problem has been solved.

Now, it is a recognition of this problem, and of the fact that all
efforts so far made to find a solution and devise a remedy have failed
to meet with the success which had been hoped for, that has determined
our choice of a subject for this--the fourteenth Hartley Lecture. Can
it be possible, that in some degree, the preaching of the preachers has
been to blame for the things we mourn?

From America we hear of a new profession which has been called into
existence as a result of the fierce competition of industrial and
commercial life. It is the profession of "the business doctor," and
already the idea has been justified. All is not well, perhaps, with
some great firm; rivals are getting ahead; profits are declining, and
"the business doctor" is called in to investigate and prescribe. He
goes from department to department, considering the methods pursued,
checking the expenditure on this, on that, on the other. He interviews
the partners, the managers, the men down through the various grades;
the books are ope