Studies in Christianity. By A. Clutton-Brock. (Constable. 4s. 6d.)—There seems
no sufficient reason why the duty of preaching should be confined to the clergy ; and the results of such a ministry as that of Miss Boyden may lead us to desire to see the pulpit opened not only to women, but to laymen of the type represented by Mr. Glutton-Brock. As a fact, no one has exercised more influence over those of the younger clergy—they are. unfortunately, a minority—who take their
sermons seriously, and preach not because they have to say something, but because they have something to say. Two quotations may be given :-
" It is a common gibe that man makes God in his own image. If he did, there would be less to be said against religion. Man is by nature too great a snob to make his God in his own image. He abases himself before that which is lower than himself, as Euripides told the Athenians so often. He dares not believe that God speaks to him in the best of himself. The divine is to him something utterly alien from himself, something wineli he expresses in images hideous and bestial, and in practices more hideous and bestial still."
" There is only one fatal heresy about Christ, namely, the docetic ; which robs him of all reality, pretending that he 111.1`,: a phantom or a puppet on the earth, while the real God remained safe and calm and painless in His heaven. The devout are always falling into this heresy unawares, because they are afraid of the reality of Christ ; because they could not worship him if he were real."
Does not this fear underlie much of the suspicious orthodoxy of to-day ?
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