bang the door to in the face of God, as linger outside when he is called to enter.

It has been a perplexity to some expositors how St. Luke, who compressed so greatly in his record of the deeds of the apostles, came to elaborate at such length in his account of this incident. But the more we study the New Testament, the more deeply are we impressed by the frequency of its warning against the terrible misuse of life brought about by half-heartedness and the spirit of vacillation. We are grateful that the historian allowed this chapter to stand complete, for its lesson had still to be learnt. Felix is the perpetual type of "the double-minded man, unstable in all his ways." He was apparently interested in religion, had acquired "more perfect knowledge of the Way," was capable of being emotionally stirred by the preaching of the apostle; but it all came to nothing because he would not commit himself. The appeal of Christ is, in the last resort, to the will; He informs the intellect and stirs the emotions that He may lead us to decision. He would have a man espouse His cause in the world in the scorn of consequence, and stand confronting its enemies with bridges burned be

hind him and no thought of retreat in his heart.

Christianity has no controversy with Nietzsche when he proclaims his doctrine of "the will to power." On the contrary no more essentially Christian message has been proclaimed to our age. The point at issue is to what end we shall devote these developed resources of our life. Master of phrases as he is, the modern teacher's words are cold and colourless compared with those which fell from our Lord's lips when He urged men to be strong and true. As we read His great appeals and warnings we find that there was no malady of the soul so much dreaded by Him as the weakness born of indecision. He came to create a race of Titans. Men were not to be afraid because kings and judges stood among their opponents; they were not to be deterred because the way was strewn with serpents or blocked by mountains; their faith should enable them to trample danger under foot and to hurl mountains into the sea. He charged men to take the kingdom of heaven by violence, to batter at closed doors until they were opened to their resistless importunity; if their hand offended them they were

to cut it off and cast it from them. He had no place in his kingdom for men who talked but did not perform. He demanded as none other ever did the forceful soul, the decisive will. He warned as none other ever did against the drifting life, the ungirt loin, the unlit lamp. We have read the words of "the Amen" in the Book of Revelation as though they were part of the esoteric teaching of that scripture, forgetting how completely they are in harmony with the timeless teaching of the Jesus of the gospels. "I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot." This is not one whit more emphatic than the Master's warning against indolence and half-heartedness, as for example, in His parables of "The Talents," "The Foolish Virgins," and "The Two Sons."

How grotesquely the spirit of Jesus has been misrepresented is made evident to us by the reports of those who have worked as chaplains among our soldiers. We are told that a great number of men identify religion with holding certain beliefs or in abstaining from a few specified evil habits. The insipidity of the Laodicean spirit has not merely lingered through the centuries,

but is actually confounded with that heroic spirit which is its direct antithesis. Christianity is a challenge to the will, a call to heroic action, an appeal to the brave adventurer; it is the apotheosis of chivalry, a clarion call "to live pure, speak true, right wrong, to follow the King."

"And there went great multitudes with Him; and He turned and said unto them, Whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple." The Master would have no man lose himself in the crowd; each must be himself, true and faithful to the highest that is in him. The only road to individuality is that of self-discipline; the conquering personality always bears the print of the nails. Self-fulfilment and self-denial are phases of the same triumphant life. The grand originality of Christian discipleship is its summons to the will-its call to final and inexorable decision.

There is no more powerful portrayal of this spirit of compromise in modern literature than that of "Peer Gynt" in Ibsen's masterpiece. Peer Gynt is Felix projected into another set of circumstances. Ibsen had some fear that this drama would not be understood outside Scandi

navia, but there was no occasion for such anxiety. The atmosphere may be local, the character is universal. Every man who studies his own heart will probably find there a clue to the interpretation of Peer Gynt. If we have found deliverance it has only been by stern dealing with our wayward hearts.

"Peer Gynt" is the story of a man who goes out into the world to please himself, whose main object is to escape difficulty, and who carries with him, as a prized portion of his spiritual equipment, sensitive antennæ quick to detect and to shrink from any obstacle which lies in the way. His only method of dealing with such a hindrance is to go around it, a practice in which he at last became so proficient that he made it an open boast. His ingenuity in this art gains him superficial success, so that it is not until late in life that he makes the discovery that a man's true self cannot be found by that method. Selfseeking does not lead, as he had expected it would, to self-fulfilment; on the contrary its destiny is self-annihilation. That in one word is the burden of Ibsen's message in "Peer Gynt."

There is much in the drama which is not so