(TO THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR.") Sin,—I think many of
your readers will be most thankful for your article in the Spectator of July 12th on Mr. James's book on religious conversions. It presents very ably the aspirations of many a man, and suggests a solution which perhaps he has been groping for. Will you bear with me if I point out that it was the absolute certainty that the Gospel has a message from "the God of all Grace" "adequate completely to satisfy those aspirations above all we ask or think," that has in these last forty years constrained men and women of all classes and all over the world to bear witness to the reality of the angelic message, "On earth peace," for "unto you is born a Saviour " ? All over the human race there are cravings for help from the Infinite, as evidenced by the spirit of prayer and the yearning after peace of conscience by the attempt to offer a propitiatory sacrifice. The Gospel begins with the proclamation, "He made peace," and is "the message of reconciliation, to wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not im- puting their trespasses." This message when believed enables every one to come to God in his guilt and in the conscious- ness of utter failure of all self-improvement, to the Infinite Who thus imparts" grace upon gum " and the Spirit of Christ. By this, and this alone, there will be not only an attempted outward obedience to the standard of holiness, but an inwork- ing of the Spirit of God, producing not merely aspiration, but in an ever-increasing degree " fellowship with the Father." As you truly. remark, this is not the result of Rationalism, which can only deal with facts revealed to reason, which facts have utterly failed to give either peace of conscience or power for communion with the Infinite, which can only come from God Himself. The "law," which is "perfect," necessarily reveals the failure of man, but is quite power- less to supply the remedy, while the providential discipline of daily life.extorts the cry, "Who shall deliver me from this body of death ? " As in Creation, the state of multitudes of souls may be described in the words:—" And the earth was with- out form, and void ; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said Let there be light : and there was light." So now "through the tender mercy of our God, the Dayspring from on high hath visited us to give light to them that sit in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet in the way of peace." And what has been the result of the proclamation of this gospel in cathedral, church, chapel, lodging-house, open-air meeting, or back slum? At home tens of thousands, whether as clergy or laymen, and tens of thousands of converts abroad, are witnesses from personal experiences of the glorious Gospel of Christ, not, as you point out, by uniformity of Church organisation, but in the far grander unity of the Spirit in worship and allegiance to their Lord, and thus "diversities of operations" express not the finite and faulty experiences of human effort, but the growing grandeur "of the fulness of Him that filleth all in all." Some of us have sung "Just as I am with- out one plea" with people of all classes,—officers, soldiers, sailors, lawyers, doctors, working people, in Russia, Sweden, Germany, Italy, Holland, France, Spain, and in America, and with ex-Brahmins and Mahommedans in India ; while in Fiji, where seventy years ago all were cannibals, ninety per cent, now praise God, and join with tens of thousands of converts from China, Africa, north, south, east, west, and centre, in the triumph song sung by the redeemed of all lands, "Unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and made us kings and priests, to Him be to glory."—
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