inded friend. I want to be
quite sure that the clothes that I doff are the wrong clothes, and that
the clothes that I don are the right ones.

Mr. Gladstone once thought out very thoroughly this whole question as
to how frequently and how radically a man may change his mental outfit
without forfeiting the confidence of those who have come to value his
judgements. And, as a result of that hard thinking, the great man
reached half a dozen very clear and very concise conclusions. (1) He
concluded that a change of front is very often not only permissible but
creditable. 'A change of mind,' he says, 'is a sign of life. If you
are alive, you must change. It is only the dead who remain the same.
I have changed my point of view on a score of subjects, and my
convictions as to many of them.' (2) He concluded that a great change,
involving a drastic social cleavage, not unlike a change in religion,
should certainly occur not more than once in a lifetime. (3) He
concluded that a great and cataclysmic change should never be sudden or
precipitate. (4) He concluded that no change ought to be characterized
by a contemptuous repudiation of old memories and old associations.
(5) He concluded that no change ought to be regarded as final or worthy
of implicit confidence if it involved the convert in temporal gain or
worldly advantage. (6) And he concluded that any change, to command
respect, must be frankly confessed, and not be hooded, slurred over, or
denied.

All this is good, as far as it goes. But even Mr. Gladstone must not
be too hard on sudden and cataclysmic changes. What about Saul on the
road to Damascus? What about Augustine that morning in his garden?
What about Brother Laurence and the dry tree? What about Stephen
Grellet in the American forest? What about Luther on Pilate's
staircase? What about Bunyan and Newton, Wesley and Spurgeon? What
about the tales that Harold Begbie tells? And what about the work of
General Booth? Professor James, in his _Varieties of Religious
Experience_, has a good deal to say that would lead Mr. Gladstone to
yet one more change of mind concerning the startling suddenness with
which the greatest of all changes may be precipitated.

And this, too, must be said. Every wise man has, locked away in his
heart, a few treasures that he will never either give or sell or
exchange. It is a mistake to suppose that all our opinions are open to
revision. They are not. There are some