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2. The activity of ministers and missionaries is, as I have said, twofold. Besides working from without to within by building up denominations, it also works from within to without by converting individuals. Members of every Church or mission are, in ordinary phrase, intent “to save souls”. Their work is not for praise, and is sacred from any intrusion. Spirit wrestles with spirit, and power passes by unknown ways. Souls are only kindled by souls. Conversion opens blind eyes to see the Most High, but it is not in human power to direct the ways of conversion. The spirit bloweth where it listeth. There are, however, other means by which eyes may be opened at any rate to see, if only dimly, and some of these means are under human control. Such a means is that which is called higher education or university teaching, or the knowledge of the humanities.

I would therefore conclude by calling notice to the much or the little which is being done by this higher education. The people are to a large extent blind because of the overwhelming glory of the present. They see nothing beyond the marvellous revelations of science—its visions of possessions and of power, and its triumphs over the forces of nature. They are occupied in using the gigantic instruments which are placed at the command of the weakest, and they are driven on by some relentless pressure which allows no pause on the wayside of the road of life. They see power everywhere—power in the aggressive personalities which heap money in millions, power in the laboratory, power in the market-place, power in the Government; but they do not see anything which satisfies the human yearning for something higher and holier; they cannot see the God whose truth they feel and whose call they hear. Many of them look to the past and surround themselves with the forms of mediaeval days, and some go to the country, where, in a land of tender shades and silences, they try to commune with the Most High.