nd yet what is our
vaunted Christendom but a vast assemblage of believing but
disobedient men? Said William Law to John Wesley, "The head can as
easily amuse itself with a living and justifying faith in the blood
of Jesus as with any other notion." The most sacred duty may
degenerate into a dogma, asking only to be believed. "I go, sir,"
answered the son in the parable, "but went not."

2. It is not mere feeling. It is neither hope of heaven's joy, nor
fear of hell's misery. It may rightly include these, but it is
vastly more and higher. It is neither ecstasy nor remorse. The most
resolutely impenitent sinner can shout "Hallelujah," and "Woe is
me," as loudly as any saint. Now feeling is of vast importance. It
stands close to the will and stimulates it, but it is not
conformity. The will must be aroused to a robust life.

3. Christianity is these and a great deal more. Mere belief would
make religion a mere theology. Mere emotion would make it mere
excitement. The true divine idea of it is a life; doing his will,
not indolently sighing to do it, and then lamenting that we do it
not; but the thing itself in actual achievement, from day to day,
from month to month, from year to year. Thus religion rises on us in
its own imperial majesty. It is no mere delight of the understanding
in the doctrines of our faith; no mere excitement of the
sensibilities, now harrowed by fear, and now jubilant in hope; but a
warfare and a work, a warfare against sin, and a work with God.
Religion is not an entertainment, but a service. We are to set
before us the perfect standard, and then struggle to shape our lives
to it. Personal sanctity must be made a business of.[A]

[Footnote A: This page is mainly a series of quotations from Dr.
R.D. Hitchcock's sermon on "Religion, the Doing of God's Will."]

A little more than thirty years ago a regiment was sent home from
the Army of the Potomac to enforce the draft after the riots in this
city. Some of you may picture to yourselves a thousand men with silk
banners and gold lace and bright uniforms, resplendent in the
sunshine. You could not make a worse mistake.

First in that gray early morning came two old flags, so torn by shot
and shell that there was hardly enough left of them to tell whether
the State flag was that of Massachusetts or Virginia. And behind
these came scant three hundred men. All the rest were sleeping
between Washington and Richmond, some on almost every battle-field