THERE are thousands and thousands of men who are pretty moral, who join the institutions of religion, who do not break over the theological fences violently anywhere, and who are considered very good Christians. If they have more than morality it is regarded as all the better; but that is all that is regarded as indispensable. Notwithstanding that, a man may be moral and join institutions of religion, and yet have not dreamed what the central element of religion is—the substitution of a true love for self-seeking in any of its forms—the reconstruction of the whole life and character around about this appropriate center. So a man may comply with the average church notions on the subject of religion, and yet know nothing whatever about it. A man may conform to his own general vague sentiments or conscience in many respects, and yet be far from religion. A man may be decorous, he may be prayerful, he may be obedient to much law; but no matter what a man complies with and conforms to, the requisition is absolute. "Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels"—though Demosthenes, though Cicero, though all the noblest and most eloquent and most cogent preachers, such as Bourdaloue, Massillon, and Whitefield speak through my mouth the things which concern time and eternity and human life—if I am not animated by the principle of unfeigned and organific love, if that is not the central motive, and it does not color everything I do, what am I? I should not dare to say what such men are; but the apostle did say. They are worse than bass drums, according to his declaration. He says, "They are as sounding brass." Is there anything in this world that is so empty in and of itself as those little thin plates of brass that go sounding through the streets? Such men are "tinkling cymbals." Paul says that though a man may be a brilliant orator, though he may be wise, though he may possess many noble qualities, if he has not this central element of love, he is a "tinkling cymbal." An Italian woman might as well dance and cause the castanets to rattle, and then say, "I am a Christian," as a man, who merely has an overflow of eloquence says, "I am a Christian teacher." That man is a Christian teacher the breath of whose life bears love; but that man who simply inspires more thought of worship, more technical piety, without love, is "sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal."—Christian Union.