rammatical, and therefore often despised, while so many thousands
of university men were preaching and writing of Christ. But no one now
disputes the fact that the old-fashioned proclamation of the doctrine
of Jesus Christ as a Divine Saviour of the lost has largely gone out
of fashion. The influence of the priest, of the clerk in holy orders,
of the minister, has been so largely undermined that candidates for
the ministry are becoming scarce in many Churches, just while we are
seeing them arise in steadily increasing numbers from among the very
people who know the Army and its work best, and who have most
carefully observed the demands of sacrifice and labour it makes upon
its leaders.

One cannot but rejoice when one hears ever and anon of some conference
or congress at which various efforts are made to recover, at any rate,
the appearance of a forward movement in the Churches. But the most
serious fact of all, perhaps, is the mixture amongst these
Christianizing plans, whether in one country or another, of the
unbelieving leaven, so that it is possible for men to go forth as the
emissaries of Christianity who have ceased to believe in the Divine
nature of its Founder, and who look for success rather to schemes of
education and of social and temporal improvement than to that new
creation of man by God's power, wherein lies all our hope, as indeed
it must be the hope of every true servant of Christ.

But I call attention to these facts not to reproach any Church. Far
from it. I simply desire to point out one reason for thinking
ourselves justified in anticipating for the Army a future influence
far beyond anything we have yet experienced.

Recent 'defences' of Christian revelation have, in our view, been far
more seriously damaging than any attacks that have ever been made from
the hostile camp. In the hope--a vain hope--of conciliating
opposition, there has too often been a timid surrender of much that
can alone give authority to Christian testimony. If Jesus Christ was
not competent to decide the truth or untruth of the Divine revelation,
which He fully and constantly endorsed as such, how absurd it is to
suppose that any eulogies of His character can save Him from the just
contempt of all fearless thinkers, no matter to what nationality they
belong.

The Army finds itself already, and every year seems more and more
likely to find itself, the only firm and unalterable witness to the
truth of Christ and of His re