fancy that no one who knows what Walford Davies did for music in this generation will dispute that verdict.
Now the same problem, the same critical decision to which Vaughan Williams called attention in the realm of creative art, reappears even more forcibly in religion; and here it is a problem, not for the few who possess the elusive quality of genius, but for the whole company of believers. "Shall I, as a Christian, be content to pursue the religious quest as a private hobby, and to develop my own spiritual life; or shall I concern myself personally for those outside, and take upon my heart deliberately the whole world's need for Christ?" No man, with the New Testament in his hand, can have a moment's hesitation about the answer. "What I live by," declared St. Augustine, "I impart."
You have decided this matter in the most emphatic way of all, putting your life itself into the decision. Or rather, it has been decided for you, by the constraint of a higher will. For you the issue has been settled. To bring men face to face with Christ has seemed to you a matter of such immense and overruling urgency that you propose to devote your whole life to doing nothing else. You are determined, God helping you, to go down to the world of men, and show them what you have learnt—what indeed you shall go on learning more clearly every day you live—about the eternity of redeeming love and the beauty of the Lord.
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