of bringing life approximately to the standard of the Gospel, is declared to be an impracticable piece of optimism, and our Lord’s teaching hopelessly out of touch with reality.  When people talk of the difficulty of living the Christ-life under modern conditions, the plain answer is that there is in fact only one difficulty in the matter, and that is the difficulty of wanting to do it.  It is a confession of utter spiritual incompetence to say that we cannot follow the Gospel standards under modern conditions because of the isolation in which we at once find ourselves if we attempt it.  If the attempt to be a Christian isolates us, it tells a pretty plain tale about our chosen companionship.  It is asserting that it is hard for us to be Christians because we are devoted to the society of those who are not Christians, of those who ignore it and habitually insult the teachings of our Saviour.  That is surely an extraordinary confession for a Christian to make!  Can we imagine a Christian of the first period of the Church excusing himself for offering incense to the divinity of Augustus on the ground that if he did not do so certain court festivities would be closed to him, and that his friends would think him odd!

“Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you,” “The friendship of this world is enmity with God.”  We have to choose.  It is not that we may choose.  It is not that it is possible to have a little of both.  As Christians it is quite impossible in any real sense to have the friendship of the world, though many Christians think that they can.  What really is open to us is the enmity of the world if we are sincere and strict in our profession, and the contempt of the world if we are not.  You have not to read very deep in contemporary literature to learn what the world thinks about the Christian who ignores or compromises his standards.  The world knows perfectly well what constitutes a Christian life, and it shows a well merited scorn of those who, not having the courage openly to abandon it, yet show by their lives that they do not value it.  We may not show the same sort of contempt for the “weak brother” as S. Paul calls him, but we ought to make it plain that we have no sort of approval of the brother who pleads weakness as an excuse for laxity.

There is one law of life and only one; and that is summed up in our Lady’s direction to the servants at Cana in Galilee:  “Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.”  There is no ground for pleading that our Lord’s will is an obscure will, or that circumstances have so changed that much that He set forth in word and example has no application to-day in the America of the twentieth century.  Perhaps if any one feels that there is some truth in the last statement, he would do well to examine the case and to find out just what and how much of the Gospel teaching is obsolete, and how much has contemporary application, and to ask himself whether he is constantly putting in action that part which