commercial
activity, the same almost insane thirst for amusement and excitement,
the same degeneracy of moral fibre. The sins that sapped the life of
Ephesus are the same that degrade contemporary life. In some ways
Ephesus was, possibly, more frankly corrupt; but on the other hand it
had no daily press to advertise and promote sin and social corruption.
There is more of Christianity and of Christian influence in the modern
city, but even here there is a curious resemblance between the two. The
Christian Religion had but recently been introduced into Ephesus, but
already it had precisely that touch of ineffectiveness that seems to us
so modern. The message of the risen Lord to the angel of the Church in
Ephesus is: "Nevertheless I have this against thee, that thou hast left
thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and
repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly,
and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent."

The things that hearten us are sometimes strange; but I suppose that
there is a feeling of encouragement in our present day distress and
spiritual ineffectiveness in the thought that even under S. John the
Church in Ephesus was not wholly ideal. The conditions which baffle us,
baffled him. The converts who were so promising and enthusiastic
declined in zeal and fell back under the spell of worldliness. Zeal is a
quality which is maintained with great difficulty, and the pull of the
world, whether social or business, is steadily exercised. Converts in
Ephesus, like converts in New York, felt that their friends were right
who declared that they were quite unnecessarily strict, and that in
order to serve Christ it was not necessary to turn their backs
absolutely on Diana.

As one tries to reconstruct the situation in Ephesus, one feels that our
Lady would have had no prominence in the Church in the way of an
actively exercised influence. One thinks of her as living in retirement,
as not even talking very much. If she lived long she would be an object
of increasing interest and even of awe to the new converts, and an
object of growing love to all those who were admitted to any sort of
fellowship with her. But one cannot imagine a crowd about her, inquiring
into her experiences and her memories of her divine Son. Once she told
of her experience, for it was necessary that the Church should know of
the circumstances of the coming of the Son of God i