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THE PREACHER'S WORLD go far; but the Church that does it is in its grave-clothes. People want to have everything in them spoken to except their consciences." Or in the blunt words of the late Bishop Gore, "We do like to lie to ourselves about ourselves!"

In every age the preaching of the Word has had to reckon with this perverse, tenacious mood. From the days of Amos and Isaiah to the present, "Prophesy unto us smooth things" has been an ever-recurring demand; and Gore, to quote him again, once averred that "the disease of modern preaching is its search after popularity." But it is the false prophet who plays down to men's craving for security when he ought to be showing them the lightnings of God flashing about their sins. "When God commands to take the trumpet," wrote John Milton in a famous passage, "and blow a dolorous or jarring blast, it lies not in man's will what he shall say, or what he shall conceal." The true prophets have never been pious dreamers and idealists, with their heads in the clouds. They have dealt with concrete situations and urgent realities: in the name of their God they have set up their banners against every wrecking force in the life of the world around them, and "Thus saith the Lord" has been their clarion cry.

The trouble is that there is something deep in human nature which objects to God, and will use even religion as a defence-mechanism against the thrust of reality. "The way to be successful," wrote Dr. W. R. Inge with a characteristically caustic touch, "is to give the 29