cleared, and you would have seen the wonderful thing beginning to happen, the first appearance of the radiant society of transformed men in that corrupt university city of long ago.

But you will never find salvation in the Church of Corinth. It awaits you in the Church of London, and nowhere else. It is in the Church of London, and nowhere else, that you, an inhabitant of London, must get your experience of Jesus.

The explanation of a great deal of the present situation lies in the fact that for many years we have been taught to find our experience of Jesus in the pages of the Gospels and not in the life of the Church. There has been an attempt on the part of those who found the way of the Church laborious to escape from it into the Gospels. Now it is very important to explain to people to-day that the Gospels are not an independent biography of Jesus. The Gospels are the work of men of power who embodied the Life which transforms the world. They are such a selection from the sayings and doings of our Lord as shall best illustrate His intercourse in His risen life with His children in His Church.

If

No! one cannot escape from the Church into the Gospels, which the Church shaped and gave to her members in order that they might understand better what they were already experiencing within her circle. The Bible is not the way; it is the time-table which shows us when and where the train starts. you want to go to Glastonbury, you will do well to consult a time-table of the London and South-Western Railway; but having done so, you do not do well to sit down on the open page and say, "Here I go to Glastonbury." That is not the way the time-table conducts you to Glastonbury. It points you to two parallel lines of metal and a coach which runs along them, and if you get into the coach at the scheduled time there is every hope that you will reach the shrine.

The Bible is the time-table in which the company of transformed men tells us the time, the way, the place, the plan. The fact is that our Bible teaching bores our children, because we have not used it to put them into the train. We have been reading them the time-table when they wanted change of air.

It is a big Bavarian village church. I am in a corner, but for the rest the broad nave is empty. Why does the west door tremble and move in that odd fashion? Surely no draught can shake it in that manner, it is too heavy. Something is trying to get in. A dog? No! it is Wilhelm, aged five. There is an awful moment when it appears that the big door is going to crush him, but he eludes it skilfully and patters cheerfully up the nave in his tiny hobnailed shoes; Wilhelm of the bare legs and knees and short knickerbockers, the magnificent braces strapped over the white shirt, and the brave hat with the eagle's feather. He is all alone. He is five years old. But he is full of business. Up to the top he goes and is engulfed and lost to view in an immense pew. The church is big and empty; it is full of twilight shadows; great white figures of the saints look down from altar-pieces. Amid this awful silence Wilhelm prays. He is not in the least alarmed, for above him in the gloom of the chancel a friendly star is twinkling, and the star says in language which Wilhelm understands," Jesus is here."

H. F. B. Mackay.

THE CHURCH AT WORK

The Church in the Summer Resort

TH

Somewhere in New England

HE rector has asked me to write an account of our services in a little town which has an influx of summer visitors for three months in the year. The town itself is a small one and the number of communicants is relatively even smaller. Church people among the residents come and go. Once there were a hundred, now the number is reduced to a score, a few years hence because of some change in the business activities of the town there may be an increase again. The present condition of things so far as the parish is concerned is

due in a large measure to the failure on the part of the diocese to make a big" drive " to convert the town when Church people were many and services were maintained throughout the year. Now the Church is closed for most of the winter months, and as in so many similar cases, the impression is fostered that the services are maintained only for the summer residents. In the town of which I am writing this is not true. The Church is opened several times during the interval between summer and summer and the faithful usually get their Christmas and Easter Communions.

But the rector wishes me to tell how in this small congregation the Holy Eucharist has been made the chief service of Sunday in such a country place, so that practically no one cares for or expects any other service. It is often assumed that only in cities and large parishes can this be accomplished where a choir and a large congregation of people are available who have been educated up to High Mass and Choral Eucharists. The rector tells me that from the very first when he came to the town more than twenty years ago the Eucharist was given the chief place. The present church building is very small and unpretentious, seating not more than sixty people. It is a very plain, bare frame building on the outside, only the Cross on the gable suggesting the character of the building. When a newcomer enters, however, there is usually a gasp of surprise. The only object the eye rests upon is the properly appointed Altar and that tells the whole story- that the building is for the worship of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament of the Altar. There is no chancel, no pulpit, no seats for clergy nothing of permanent arrangement but the Altar. This is vested in a handsome frontal and super-frontal which are festal and are not changed except in penitential seasons. Instead of having several sets in a sequence of colors one good set is furnished such as any small parish could afford, obtained from St. Dunstan's Society in London which makes a specialty of providing for just such conditions where taste and artistic correctness go further than money. Richness is given to the Altar in this way. Dignity is secured by the Six Vesper Lights and Two Eucharistic Lights

and the beautifully embroidered Fair Linen Cloth and other appointments for Eucharist itself, the gifts of grateful summer visitors.

For years there has been no service in the summer months but the Holy Eucharist. The type of service is the Low Celebration with hymns. No other music is practicable. To attempt the Sanctus and Gloria and other parts of the office would mean poor settings, feebly rendered. But all can sing the familiar hymns. The people from the cities seem to enjoy the opportunity of singing and emancipation from a trained choir. The hymns are wellknown and only a few are used. These are sung over and over and no one complains. The hymn after the prayer of Consecration is invariably Dr. Bright's "And now O Father, mindful of the love." Everyone knows and sings it. The hymn after the Blessing is invariably "Glory be to Jesus." Thus two distinct acts of eucharistic worship are made by the congregation, one commemorative of the Sacrifice, the other in praise of the Precious Blood. Many who never have sung the latter hymn in this association have remarked upon its fitness and significance in the service. Hymns are used in only two other places, at the entrance of the celebrant and at the offertory. Those chosen are hymns of adoration and praise. Other congregational parts of the service are said by celebrant and people, and visitors from city churches actually find their voices and join in with a heartiness which in the tiny building is impressive. Thus one of the essential features of the Lord's Service is emphasized, it is made the people's service.

The "use" is established in the parish of which I am writing, of having one good set of eucharistic vestments, white in color and not using the other colors. The parish is very poor and could not afford expensive sets, hence a festal set is used as in the case of the Altar frontal. The principle of having everything around the Altar the best obtainable is preferred to the attempt to follow out more elaborate ceremonial.

The late Eucharist on Sunday is over in an hour, including a sermon and communions. Those who come from a distance are able to return to their houses or hotels early and in the heat

of the summer there is no severe tax made physically by this brief service. But a great deal has been done. The worshippers have fulfilled their obligation to be present at the Altar on the Lord's Day, they have done their part to make the service corporate worship, and if desiring to do so, have made a communion. The rector gives short, practical addresses on the verities of the Faith and the essentals of the Christian life. An extraordinary feature is the wide variety of parishes represented. Frequently the congregation includes members of the most "advanced" and most "evangelical evangelical" parishes from several cities along with the local parishioners and all worship together in harmony and with seldom an unkind criticism. Year after year some of the people return. A few select this particular town because of the Church privileges. Occasionally a group of Church people comes from a considerable distance because the service is known to them. There is absolutely nothing to attract except the service itself, the simple yet popular Eucharist. I think any parish, large or small, might popularize the Eucharist as the chief act of worship on Sunday by adopting some such method - the Low Celebration with hymns.

Up in another part of the town is a second place of worship, nearer to the cottage colony and the hotel. Here again a cottage and a colony have grown up around the Altar. Owing to the kind generosity of grateful worshippers a most beautifully appointed" oratory" has been built, a miniature Church, with an Early English Altar, arranged with riddels and curtains, two Lights and a Crucifix. Over the Altar hangs a copy of a famous folding altar-piece in a Church of Holland and good colored copies of great religious paintings are around the walls. The chapel is dedicated to the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, and accordingly the Altar is continually vested in red and the Mass of the Holy Spirit is frequently offered. Here are maintained through the summer months the daily Eucharist and daily Evensong. A goodly number prized these privileges during the past summer. In the early morning and the late afternoon worshippers might be seen coming to the Chapel over the pasture plateau looking off towards one of the