I have a friend who subscribes to the daily Times, and, independent of postal irregularities, peruses it in. strict chronological order, one copy per diem. admire, but find it impossible to emulate, his self command. Somehow or other [tind myself constantly falling into arrears. Two mails arrive in close pr nd_to overtake forced journalistie march. lament is sitting delay. is of less: moment.
There is no scruple then in ipping nearly all the [leaders and certainly nine-tenths of the speeches. Te is not so safe during the recess, when the newspapers find space fur a whole host of matters with a better claim to our attention and of an interest wider and fresher than the groaning and creaking progress of that effete parliamentary coach of ours.
For the last two hours I have been reducing a small pile of neatly bound packets on iny left, by the process of slashing them open' with' a paper knife, hastily glancing over their contents, and throwing them in a confused and unmanageable heap on the other side. Ttis a wonderful kaleidoscopic procession this which has revolved before me! News from all the ends of the earth, which experience has taught me to read with an ever lurking doubt that it may be contradicted next mail; political reflections and prognostications of seemingly equal value; pulpit discourses and stump orations of perlups a like sincerity; here a paragraph to describe an Imperial interview, pregnant with hopes and fears for the peace of Burope; there a column and a half full of the lst divorce suit, or wholly concerned with some trumpery row at a Tipperary police-court. What a strange mad medley is that these gentlemen of the fourth estate serve up for us with such unvarying regularity and describe with so much city and picturesque force! Tcould wish, though, that to their other brilliant qualities were added a due sense of proportion, so that current topies might be appraised more nearly at their true value, It requires some powers of discrimination to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to form a stable opinion out of this miss of ill assorted material, and I confess as I lay down the last newspapers, Lam left with " curious sense of bewilderment as to whither all this jumble of events is hurrying us. Is it growth or decay? Is it evolution or devo-sweep of progress, or eddying in the backlution! Are we flowing with the upward
waters of stagnation, or drifting on the tide of degeneration? Alnd from the Socialist with brazen throat, and the politician with lungs of leather, and the editor with voice of thunder, ring out a hundred deafening replies, amidst which babel of discord you shall scarcely hear the feeble and tremulous pipings of the Church, And yet: in all seriousness there never was a time when it behaved the Church to speak with less uncertain sound. The press has usurped too many of her functions, and men will heed no longer the voice of a teacher, whose message, indeed, no aye cant change or custom stale, but whose eyes are shut persistently to the changed conditions under which it is delivered." To what end is faith made to appear decked out in the trappings of a dead theology, religion and {dogma led forth in chains, and salvation nude dependent on the intellectual apprehension of " miracle and an historical fact The laity have now the means, such as they for determining spiritual problems for themselves. Who is to blame if the faith, strained to the breaking point by the vain inventions of the clergy, shows tendency to recoil with a spring to a sorrowful negation of belief The sea of faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle fu But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar Retreating to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world." possible to read the files of a single al and not distinguish the lines of an tional faith. And the loss of religion is the sign of a nation'sdecay, Here then isa noble work, to stem the ebbing tide, and rescue, ¢re it be too late, the essence of our spiritual life. No time now to strive and cry for empty forms; these are swept away beyond hope of retried val. Only the essentials may be saved. What then are our pastors doing in the crisis they were the first and loudest to deplore? Well, if I read my newspaper aright, the Church is industriously trying
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.