I HAVE been reading lately some “up-to-date” sermons, quite in harmony with Mr. Eliot’s new religion. No “effete theology” is set forth in those pages; crisply epigrammatic, perfumed with odors from the laboratory, they relegate the supernatural to the region of “serious fiction,” banish all authority except that of “the inner light,” and, in a word, show us how far from Puritanism the heirs of the Puritans have declined. If I dared, I would send the brilliant preacher these verses by Alfred Ainger, whose intellect was keener even than his; but perhaps he may read them if I print them here: “On Reading a Volume of Modern Sermons
“With eager knife that oft has sliced
At Gentile gloss or Jewish fable,
Before the crowd you lay the Christ
Upon the lecture table. “From bondage to the old beliefs
You say our rescue must begin—
But I want refuge from my griefs,
And saving from my sin. “The strong, the easy, and the glad
Hang, blandly listening, on your word;
But I am sick, and I am sad,
And I need Thee, O Lord!”