impossible, he must know how greatly he has failed. And he has not the
recompense that comes to many who fail, in the shape of certain
knowledge why success has been withheld.

That his failure is shared by those who strive to make religion move
the world of men is no consolation. Indeed, that thought might make
him hopeless did it not suggest that the aims and methods of both may
be wrong. It is possible to have hoped too much from the school
chapels being full, it is possible to fear too much from the churches
being empty. Piety is no doubt fostered by attendance at a religious
service, but there is some distance between piety and true religion.
It would probably not be untrue to say that Christian education has
seemed more concerned with the ceremonial duties of religion than with
its spiritual enthusiasm, more eager about faith in some particular
explanation of the past than about faith in a re-creation of the
future, more attentive to the machinery of the organisation of the
Church than to the words and commands of its Founder. As the Church
has become more powerful in the world, it has lost its power over
men's hearts. To some it has seemed an institution for the relief of
poverty, to others the support of the "haves" against the "have-nots,"
but to too few has it been the home of spiritual adventures, the
maintainer of spiritual values. Men have escaped from the relentless
simplicity of the Master's commands by attention to the complicated
machinery which disregard of them has made necessary. This may not
have been consciously marked by the young, but the atmosphere of
religion that they have had to breathe has been the tired atmosphere
of the ecclesiastical workshop, and not the bracing air of free
service. Some restoration of the hopefulness of the early Christians
is needed; hopefulness is not now the note of what is taught, though
with it is sometimes confused the boisterous cheerfulness that is