any other. In other words, we are to live the life that now is--
and let that which is to come take care of itself.

This is the trend of the modern drift.

It is an endeavor to bring the church down out of the clouds, place
it on the level of human experience, meet present human needs in
practical ways, and establish a system of natural, rational and
universal ethics.

And yet--in spite of this widely heralded liberalism; in spite of
the effort to accommodate itself to the rationalism, the unbelief
and downright infidelity of the hour; in spite of the determination
to cut loose from the primaries of the first century and ally itself
with the fast-going advance of the twentieth, this movement in the
name of Christianity has not succeeded in winning and holding the
multitude either to a personal and modified Christ, or to a
reorganized and elastic church.

The churches in which it flourishes; the churches which have
renounced faith in the supernatural and miraculous; the churches
which have swung the doors wide open on the hinges of worldly wisdom
and easy tolerance; the churches which have substituted natural
generation for supernatural regeneration, evolution instead of
revolution, the working out of human life, instead of the coming in
of divine life; the churches which teach that man is to go up and
take hold of God, instead of God coming down to take hold on man;
the churches which are broad enough to allow men of all faiths, and
men of no faith at all, to occupy their pulpits, are not
overcrowded, nor have righteousness and holiness extraordinarily
increased in their neighborhood.

On the contrary, in face of every effort to conciliate the
naturalism in man, men look upon these churches, and the
Christianity they advocate, with suspicion. They see these churches
have their goods still marked with the words, "supernatural,"
"miraculous." It is true, these churches may practically put such
goods out of sight; even then, men will not be attracted beyond the
expression of a condescending tolerance; and while admitting, as
they will, that the church is earnestly endeavoring to get rid of
its ancient incubus of theology, free its hands and take hold of the
plow handle of progress, ready, if needs be, to drive a furrow deep
enough to bury all memories of primitive faith, yet will they turn
away from that kind of a church and that sort of Christianity, with
the feeling that all this action on the part of the church