WE have the misfortune or happiness (according as we reckon it) to live in an age of corrupt Christianity, when there is neither the bracing vigour that comes with open persecution, nor the helping comfort that ought to come with a universal profession of the name of Christ. The whole community, while professing to be Christian, are away from God's own book, which they either do not heed at all, or make void by the commandments and traditions of men. We are helpless in the matter. We could accept reprobation if it would bring the world to God. It is not we who have appointed the gospel of the Kingdom as the power of God unto salvation, or who have denounced a curse on those preaching any other. It is not our invention at all. We simply believe and submit, and sorrowfully recognise the position of Christendom. But we may be of good cheer. We are on God's side, and His words to us by our reading today are, "Rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings, that when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be GLAD ALSO WITH EXCEEDING JOY."

ROBERT ROBERTS, Diary of a Voyage, page 171