ning began by Mr Hawke's standing up at one end of
the table, and saying "Let us pray." The Ernest set did not like this,
but they could not help themselves, so they knelt down and repeated the
Lord's Prayer and a few others after Mr Hawke, who delivered them
remarkably well. Then, when all had sat down, Mr Hawke addressed them,
speaking without notes and taking for his text the words, "Saul, Saul,
why persecutest thou me?" Whether owing to Mr Hawke's manner, which was
impressive, or to his well-known reputation for ability, or whether from
the fact that each one of the Ernest set knew that he had been more or
less a persecutor of the "Sims" and yet felt instinctively that the
"Sims" were after all much more like the early Christians than he was
himself--at any rate the text, familiar though it was, went home to the
consciences of Ernest and his friends as it had never yet done. If Mr
Hawke had stopped here he would have almost said enough; as he scanned
the faces turned towards him, and saw the impression he had made, he was
perhaps minded to bring his sermon to an end before beginning it, but if
so, he reconsidered himself and proceeded as follows. I give the sermon
in full, for it is a typical one, and will explain a state of mind which
in another generation or two will seem to stand sadly in need of
explanation.

"My young friends," said Mr Hawke, "I am persuaded there is not one of
you here who doubts the existence of a Personal God. If there were, it
is to him assuredly that I should first address myself. Should I be
mistaken in my belief that all here assembled accept the existence of a
God who is present amongst us though we see him not, and whose eye is
upon our most secret thoughts, let me implore the doubter to confer with
me in private before we part; I will then put before him considerations
through which God has been mercifully pleased to reveal himself to me, so
far as man can understand him, and which I have found bring peace to the
minds of others who have doubted.

"I assume also that there is none who doubts but that this God, after
whose likeness we have been made, did in the course of time have pity
upon man's blindness, and assume our nature, taking flesh and coming down
and dwelling among us as a man indistinguishable physically from
ourselves. He who made the sun, moon and stars, the world and all that
therein is, came down from Heaven in the person of his Son, with the
express purpose o