f ours,
are the ones most darkened and divided and wasted by the fussings and
false exactitudes of the creed-monger and the sectary. There is no lie
so bad as a stale disfigured truth. There is no heresy so damnable as
a narrow orthodoxy. All religious associations carry this danger of the
over-statement that misstates and the over-emphasis that divides and
betrays. Beware of that danger. Do not imagine, because you are gathered
in this queerly beautiful old building today, because I preside here in
this odd raiment of an odder compromise, because you see about you in
coloured glass and carven stone the emblems of much vain disputation,
that thereby you cut yourselves off and come apart from the great world
of faith, Catholic, Islamic, Brahministic, Buddhistic, that grows now
to a common consciousness of the near Advent of God our King. You enter
that waiting world fraternity now, you do not leave it. This place, this
church of ours, should be to you not a seclusion and a fastness but a
door.

"I could quote you a score of instances to establish that this simple
universalism was also the teaching of Christ. But now I will only remind
you that it was Mary who went to her lord simply, who was commended, and
not Martha who troubled about many things. Learn from the Mary of
Faith and not from these Marthas of the Creeds. Let us abandon the
presumptions of an ignorant past. The perfection of doctrine is not
for finite men. Give yourselves to God. Give yourselves to God. Not to
churches and uses, but to God. To God simply. He is the first word of
religion and the last. He is Alpha; he is Omega. Epitelesei; it is He
who will finish the good work begun."

The bishop ended his address in a vivid silence. Then he began his
interrogation.

"Do you here, in the presence of God, and of this congregation, renew
the solemn promise and vow that was made in your name at your Baptism;
ratifying and confirming the same in your own persons, and acknowledging
yourselves--"

He stopped short. The next words were: "bound to believe and do all
those things, which your Godfathers and Godmothers then undertook for
you."

He could not stand those words. He hesitated, and then substituted:
"acknowledge yourselves to be the true servants of the one God, who is
the Lord of Mankind?"

For a moment silence hung in the cathedral. Then one voice, a boy's
voice, led a ragged response. "I do."

Then the bishop: "Our help is in the Name of the Lo