{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_64544/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_64544","id":"gutenberg_64544","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/64544","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Society of Friends -- Doctrines"],"text":"A WAYFARER'S FAITH: ASPECTS OF THE COMMON BASIS OF RELIGIOUS LIFE\n\n\n    By\n    T. Edmund Harvey\n\nLondon: Wells Gardner, Barton and Co., Ltd.\n3 & 4, Paternoster Buildings, B.C. and 44, Victoria Street, S.W.\n\n[1913]\n\n[Printed] Headley Brothers, Bishopsgate E.C.; and Ashford, Kent\n\n\nSome of these pages were originally prepared by the writer for the use\nof his fellow members in the Society of Friends. He is indebted to the\ncourtesy of the Editor of /The Nation/ for permission to make use of two\nchapters which have appeared in its columns in a slightly different form.\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\nCHAPTER[...]PAGE\n\nI. THE COMMON BASIS OF RELIGIOUS LIFE I\n\nII. THE INNER LIFE OF THE CHURCH 2O\n\nIII. THE PROPHET IN THE CHURCH 33\n\nIV. SACRAMENTS OF LIFE 58\n\nV. SOME OF NATURE'S SACRAMENTS 85\n\nVI. INSTITUTIONS AND INSPIRATION 91\n\nVII. PRIESTS AND PONTIFFS 97\n\nVIII. THE ANSWER OF FAITH 116\n\nIX. THE HOUSE OF PEACE 135\n\nX. THE PATH TO UNITY 145\n\n\n    CHAPTER I. THE COMMON BASIS OF RELIGIOUS LIFE.\n\nTHERE is a well known story of how a man of letters a century ago, when\nquestioned as to his religious views, answered that all sensible men\nwere of one religion, and to the further query as to what that religion\nmight be, made the curt response: \"Sir, sensible men never say.\" The\nstory is characteristic of its age, and of the attitude towards religion\nof some of its ablest men. Many of the greatest thinkers, whatever the\nreligious opinions of the circle in which they were educated may have\nbeen, held themselves aloof from controversy on questions of creed and\nchurch, looking upon such disputes with the kindly contempt of tolerant\nbeings who themselves had reached a larger and freer atmosphere than\nthat which surrounded those who struggled amid the dust of the plains\nbeneath their feet. Something of this spirit, which is so clearly\nmanifested in the world of politics and letters, can be seen too in many\nof the prominent religious organisations of the day. Men were weary of\nthe hateful bitterness which had characterised the theological [p.2]\ncontroversies of the seventeenth century, and the wider outlook which\ncame with the age of illumination showed itself even as late as the\nbeginning of the nineteenth century, when in Germany Catholic and\nProtestant ecclesiastical authorities united in a common religious\ncelebration at Fulda of the anniversary of the mission of Saint\nBoniface. But beneath the surface of this toleration, which seemed to be\nincreasing between Catholic, Protestant and Jew, we may perhaps feel\nthat the uniting influence lay not so much in a profound sense of the\nunderlying verities common to all their various forms of faith as in a\ncertain vagueness as to any form of dogmatic belief, a distrust of dogma\nin itself, if not an indifference to the things which that dogma\nattempted to represent. Men were willing to leave others free to have\ntheir own religious beliefs, and distrusted the enthusiasm of the\nfanatic, of the man who wished to convert others to view life as he\nhimself did. The profession of a recognition of good in all religions\nwent hand in hand with the recognition of their imperfection, and a\ndoubt as to how far they were not so much alike sharing in truth as\nalike mingled with error. This attitude is illustrated by Lessing's\nfamous fable of the three rings, which is perhaps the most quoted\npassage in \"Nathan the Wise.\" None but the father can tell the true ring\nfrom the counterfeits which he has had made; the sons must therefore\neach treat the others as in the same position as himself. No one creed\ncan claim to [p.3] itself a pre-eminence over the others, none but God\ncan distinguish the true from the false. The lesson of tolerance which\nLessing taught in his drama was one of which our age, as well as his\nown, has need, but if we are only to view all forms of faith with\nrespect because we are conscious of the difficulty of discerning the\ntrue from the false, we have reached a position which may indeed promote\nfriendly relationships in the ordinary intercourse of life, but which\ncannot in the end be satisfactory either to ourselves or to others.\nTolerance founded upon doubt can never be an inspiring virtue.\n\nIs it not possible for us, however, since we realise this, to take a\nfurther step? We need to feel, not the imperfections of all the varying\ncreeds, religions and irreligions, but the inherent strength of each,\nand from a consciousness of this to rise to some dim realization of the\ngolden thread of truth which runs through all sincere faiths, however\ndegraded or erroneous they may at first sight appear to be.\n\nIn the eighteenth century there swept over Europe a wave of new thought,\nwhich liberated men's minds from old superstitions and the narrowness of\nformer dogmatism, and produced a sort of freemasonry of new ideas\nbetween men whose national religious and political upbringing had been\nwholly different. But this wave of liberal thought failed to produce a\npermanent sense of unity; in due time came a counter-movement when men\n[p.4] turned from the generalisations and the vague optimism of these\nsyncretist philosophers. The attacks which the sceptical critics had\nlevelled on the older creeds were too negative in character: content to\nfind out the weakness of their opponents' position and to expose it to\ncontempt and ridicule, they had failed to realise the strength which lay\ndeeper than the intellectual interpretations of belief which they had\nassailed.\n\nThus the nineteenth century has witnessed in the political world an\nextraordinary revival of national spirit, especially amongst smaller\npeoples, and on the other hand a similar revival within the different\nreligious communities. The eighteenth century humanists would have\nforeseen the one as little as the other. To them it seemed that beneath\nthe clear light of reason the old dogmas of the sects would each lose\ntheir force, just as the ignorant patriotism of their day, which they\nsaw to be so largely built upon mistaken prejudice, would give away to\ntheir wide cosmopolitan spirit which felt itself above these petty views.\n\nThe revival of national feeling among the little peoples of Europe, with\nno wealth of capital or military force to give them aid, which we have\nwitnessed during the last century, is, however, hardly less remarkable\nthan the revival of life amongst the different Churches and religious\ncommunities of the western world. There was surely something lacking in\nthe theory of life of these men of broad view of a former day who for\n[p.5] all their breadth could not find room for enthusiasm such as this.\n\nWe are beginning to see that the truer cosmopolitan of the future will\nnot cease to be a citizen of his own country when he becomes a citizen\nof the world, that the wider fellowship will lose its content and its\nmeaning if it is to involve a denial of patriotism and not rather to\nsubsume it as a necessary element in the true international spirit; and\nso in the inner life of the soul we must seek to harmonize the various\ncontending creeds, not by destroying any particular creed, or attempting\nto replace it by some, vague generalisation, devoid of life or of\nattractive and inspiring force, but by attempting to appeal to the best\nin each, realising that each must have some value of its own, just as\nthe poorest of peoples has its own peculiar traits and virtues; and thus\ngradually draw the sympathies and thoughts of men nearer together by\nreason of the common life from which must spring all that is good in the\nreligion of each one.\n\nThere is a beautiful saying of Penn's which sets forth what many good\nmen of very different creeds must have felt again and again before he\ngave the thought expression: \"The humble, meek, merciful, just, pious,\nand devout souls are everywhere of one religion; and when death has\ntaken off the mask they will know one another, though the divers\nliveries they wear here makes them strangers.\" May we not venture to\ncarry further the thought and say, that this religion includes [p.6]\nevery servant of truth, and every man who is recognizing in practice in\nhis own life the need of his fellows, by subordinating his own happiness\nand interest to theirs? That there is in reality a religion which all\ngood men share we do, indeed, recognise in practice in everyday life;\nhow else can we explain the appeal to conscience, to the sense of duty,\nto the unselfish desire to benefit others, which is constantly made to\nmen of the most divergent religious views, whose theories of life would\nnot be accepted by each other for a moment?\n\nHow is it then possible for us to make more clear to our eyes and to\nothers this common basis of religion, and to build more securely upon it\nthe structure of our lives?\n\nWe must not be disappointed if it is difficult to give intellectual\nexpression to this basis of life; at best such expression must be\nimperfect, and we can only hope to arrive at it very slowly. Perhaps\nsome hint of the way in which one may look at the problem may be given\nby that strange poem of W. B. Yeats \"The Indian upon God.\" The poet\npictures the way in which the creatures of earth each frame their own\nidea of the Divine Creator after their own image; some vast Brocken\nspectre, perhaps, some may say, cast by the reflection of imagination\nupon the clouds of the world without. And yet the poem has surely within\nit another meaning. To each creature comes, coloured, it is true, by\ndifferent visions, [p.7] some dim picture of the Maker, some sense of\nsustaining presence in the world and in their own lives:\n\n/I passed along the water's edge, below the humid trees,/\n\n/My spirit rocked in evening light, the rushes round my knees,/\n\n/My spirit rocked in sleep and sighs; and saw the moorfowl pace/\n\n/All dripping on a grassy slope, and saw them cease to chase/\n\n/Each other round in circles, and heard the eldest speak:/\n\n/\"Who holds the world between His bill and made us strong and weak,/\n\n/Is an undying moorfowl, and He lives beyond the sky./\n\n/The rains are from His dripping wing, the moonbeams from His eye.\"/\n\n/I passed a little further on, and heard a lotus talk:/\n\n/\"Who made the world, and ruleth it, He hangeth on a stalk,/\n\n/For I am in His image made, and all this tinkling tide/\n\n/Is but a sliding drop of rain between His petals wide.\"/\n\n/A little way within the gloom a roebuck raised his eyes/\n\n/Brimful of starlight, and he said, \"The stamper of the skies,/\n\n/He is a gentle roebuck; for how else, I pray, could He/\n\n/Conceive a thing so sad and soft, a gentle thing like me? \"/\n\n/I passed a little further on and heard a peacock say:/\n\n/\"Who made the grass and made the worms and made my feathers gay,/\n\n/He is a monstrous peacock, and He waveth all the night/\n\n/His languid tail above us, lit with myriad spots of light.\"/\n\nOne can readily understand that some readers might be shocked by what\nwould seem to them to be idolatrous images. Yet does not the whole poem\nshow something more than the fact that men worship images of God after\ntheir own likeness? Beneath the grossest idolatry there [p.8] may be at\nleast some sense of contact with the Unseen. Though man, like his\nfellow-creatures, cannot behold unveiled the vision of the Eternal,\nsomewhere under every imperfect picture which our dogmas have framed of\nHim does not there lie at least some trait of faint resemblance? And,\nhowever much we may endeavour to remove from our minds all\nanthropomorphic conceptions we needs must think as men. Our most\nabstract thoughts are but spiritualised metaphors, the ghosts and\nshadows of the fully-coloured language of our earlier days or of a more\nprimitive people. The moment we think of the origin and meaning of\nwords, we realise that this is so; when we speak of conceiving a\nthought, grasping an idea, abandoning an argument, we are using\nmetaphors which were once bold and vivid but are now scarcely perceived\nas such at all. And so in all our formulated thoughts of the Unseen we\nmay be said to be in a sense idolaters. But only sinfully so, if we\nwilfully cleave to the lower forms when we have had vision of a higher.\nThe fact that we express our thoughts on religion through the medium of\nthe terms of the material world does not mean that the religious truths\nwhich they express are dependent upon, and are evolved out of, the\nphysical world, any more than the intellectual processes of conception\nand perception are dependent on or derived from the physical processes\nafter which they are named. But it does surely mean that we must\nrecognise the necessary [p. 9] imperfection of our efforts to express\nthe unseen realities, whether in religious creed or philosophical dogma.\nIf we are convinced that there is a real unity underlying the religious\nlife of every sincere man, whether he call himself religious or no, how\ncan we best promote the growth of this sense of unity, so that in every\nform of faith the best may be strengthened and drawn into a sense of\nmembership of a wider whole?\n\nIn the first place we must endeavour to be faithful to the best ideal of\nour own party, of our own church or creed, to insist on the positive\nside of what it teaches rather than its negations. The true protestant,\nfor instance, should be zealous to protest for a living ideal which he\nfeels to correspond to his needs, and not, as too often has been the\ncase in the past, merely to protest against evils and mistakes connected\nwith another ideal.\n\nThen realizing the vastness of truth, and the limitations of our own\npowers of apprehending it, we must be willing to recognize that there\nmust be other aspects of truth which we, as individuals or as a\nreligious community, have not yet apprehended, and that the whole truth\nmust needs be too great for any human mind or system to express. This\nattitude of mind should surely be perfectly compatible with an\nenthusiastic loyalty to that vision of the truth which has been given to\nus or our community, and with a desire to share this vision with others.\n[p.10]\n\nTo attempt to surrender our own expression of the Truth as we see it,\nand replace it by an expression drawn from the vision of others is to\nmake in the inner life an error like that of the school of Bologna in\npainting. The Caracci and their followers deliberately aimed at\nacquiring the peculiar excellencies of each of the great masters who\npreceded them, the harmonies of Raphael, the colour of Titian, the\nvigour and the grandiose forms of Michael Angelo. They hoped to combine\nall these and thus achieve a higher perfection than their masters, but\nin so doing they failed to express themselves in their own way, for they\nwere always painting things as they imagined they ought to see them, and\nnot as they really saw them.\n\nThe great artist, like Rembrandt, will honour and admire a Raphael or a\nCorreggio without seeking to imitate them or to borrow their technique.\nAnd so while we recognise the vision of truth that comes to men of\ndifferent views from our own, we must not abandon our own vision, or our\nattempt to express it faithfully, because we know that we see a part and\nnot the whole.\n\nEvery great religious movement has been in its origin or at its highest\npoint universal in its aspiration, claiming to make appeal to all\nmankind and to become at length the religion of the whole world. And it\nis this very universal claim which seems to some dispassionate critics\nso narrow- spirited and fanatical, which bears witness to the force and\nreality of that deepest religious life [p.11] which underlies all\ndifference of dogma, and finds its expression in all these varying\nfaiths. At the moment of its budding forth, the tiny twig feels within\nit the expanding life of the whole tree. \"I am the true tree, and the\ntree that is to be.\" it may be imagined as saying; though the great\nboughs above it do not stir in the wind that shakes it to and fro. The\ntwig may have within it the possibility of growth to a size exceeding\nthe stem from which it now springs, or it may remain only a twig; but in\neither case it is a part of the tree, and in a sense it is the tree; its\nlife is the tree's life. So every great religious movement, when at its\nbest and highest, looks forward to world-wide extension; it may be that\nthe flood of life takes new channels and only a tiny sect remains to\nbear witness to what has been, but yet, when its members were filled\nwith their first enthusiasm, and went forth into the world to win others\nto their views, they were strong because somehow or other they had come\ninto touch with the eternal; their creed and organisation may have\ncorresponded only to the need of the day, and of a limited number of\npeople, or it may have been of wider application and able to endure for\na longer time, but in spite of these limitations, the creed and\norganisation represent an inner life through which their members came\ninto touch with the source of all life and strength.\n\nOur task then must be to strive to be more conscious of this fact in our\nown lives, and [p.12] in elaborating our own systems, as well as in\ndealing with and considering the religious views of others. In\ndiscarding the transient elements, the husks of dogma, we have to\nrespect the seed-corn of life within them. The recognition of this will\nmake us more reverent towards even the hoary errors of antiquity, and\nthe methods of thought and life which to us are outworn, but were once\nliving, and still may be living to some.\n\nThis surely is the lesson which we may draw from that touching story\nrelated by John Cassian of the monk Serapion, which Auguste Sabatier\nonce told to his pupils. In his old age the good monk had suddenly been\nbrought to realise, by the preaching of two missioners, the error which\nhe had committed in thinking of the Eternal as a being like himself,\nfashioned in human form. His friends gathered round him to thank God for\nhis deliverance from the grievous anthropomorphic heresy, when, in the\nmidst of their prayers, the old man fell in tears to the ground with the\npathetic cry: \"Woe's me, wretched man that I am! they have taken away my\nGod and I have none to hold to or worship or pray to now.\"\n\nIn our work of thought or of practical endeavour we shall need above all\nto realise the value of humble reverence for truth for its own sake, and\nof the recognition that wherever goodness is, there is that which the\ntheist knows as the Divine, which others my speak of as the enduring\nspiritual [p.13] ideal, but which, by whatever name we call it is the\ninspiring and illuminating reality which shines through every unselfish\ndeed and thought, and makes our lives of worth.\n\nWe are sensible of this uniting force, however much our ethical ideals\nmay differ. We cannot explain the common principles which justify the\nideal of a Gordon and that of a Tolstoy, but we must surely feel that\nthose ideals are in some way branches from the same good tree; it may\nwell be that just as in the intellectual world different bents of genius\neach have their place and justification, so too in the moral have\ndifferent types of the ethical ideal. The scientific mind, the\npractical, executive talent of the businessman, the speculative powers\nof the metaphysician and the creative gifts of the poet and artist, each\nhave their place, and no one human mind can combine them all. So, too,\nit may be with the moral ideals realised here in our human lives.\nBecause one is good, another is not wholly wrong. There may be varieties\nof goodness just as there are differences of shape and beauty between\nflower and flower. But while we recognise this, we surely need too to\nrealise that there must ultimately be some vital connection between\nthese different ideals, although we ourselves may not be able to\nperceive the unifying influence or principle. Is it not here that the\nUnion of Ethical Societies fails, in that after insisting upon \"the\nsupreme importance of the knowledge, love and practice of the Right,\"\n[p.14] their manifesto goes on to disclaim \"the acceptance of any one\nultimate criterion of right\" as a condition of ethical fellowship? Yet\nunless there be some such criterion, can we speak of \"the Right\" at all?\nThe capital \"R\" is an unconscious survival of the theistic expression of\nthought, or rather the expression of the essentially religious spirit of\nman, which in spite of a creed of intellectual agnosticism, recognises\nthe Divine in life and does obeisance to it under another name. The idea\nof good and the thought of God are not connected together merely by a\nsimilarity of sound; they have but one origin. Thus, if where goodness\nis, there God is, we must be able to find evidence, even where there may\nbe no intellectual knowledge of God, of the recognition of a unique\nworth in the good apart from all attempted explanations of its value.\nAnd perhaps we cannot do better than take an example from the writings\nof a master sceptic, to show how in spite even of an apparent intention\nto make mock of the failure of the good and unselfish man, and of the\nutterly impracticable nature of his ideal, a kind of homage is yet paid\nto the ideal and to its votary, and through them to the source of their\ninspiration.\n\nReaders of Voltaire's \"Candide\" will recall the figure of the Anabaptist\nJacques, the upright and unselfish man who perishes in spite of all his\ntrust in overruling good. Voltaire in picturing his death would appear\nto be casting scorn upon [p. 15] a complacent view of a universe where\nsuch a thing might happen again and again, and as far as any practical\nteaching goes he would seem merely to point out that righteousness and\nfaith may be not only unavailing to ward off calamity, but may actually\nbring it upon those who make such a standard their sole guide. And yet,\neven as you read, you feel how much nobler and better it is to perish\nlike Jacques, with the unswerving faith of a good man, than to live on\ncontentedly digging one's garden and enjoying its fruits in selfish\npeace. And however much we may be conscious that in the moment of trial,\nface to face with mortal peril, we ourselves might swerve aside, might\nhesitate and fail, we yet know that if we could make our choice in a\ncool hour, reviewing calmly what we ought to do, and what we would do if\nwe could be true to the best that is in us, we should choose the\nhonourable failure of the good man rather than the success of the bad.\nIn itself we know it to be better, apart from all thought of\nconsequence. And in practice we know how in the presence of the\nloveliness of an unselfish act all lower thoughts of pleasure and of\nprofit fade away! Face to face with the enduring ideal that shines forth\nfrom. the good deed, lower ideals shrivel and sink into nothingness.\nEven truer is this of goodness made real to us in personality, and here\nit is that those of us who call ourselves Christians may find the\nkeystone to the continual self-revelation of God to man, in that supreme\nrevelation of the Divine [p.16] nature in the unique personality of\nJesus, which for the Church is the centre of inspiration and the\nexplanation of the light which shines in all other lives.\n\nIf we can unite in reverencing the good and unselfish spirit, wherever\nit manifests itself in human lives, so too, we need to reverence every-\nwhere the search after truth, and the service of Truth for its own sake.\nSurely one of the most helpful signs our age is found in this increasing\nrecognition of spiritual kinship between seekers after Truth of most\ndivergent creed; not the least of the benefits of the Higher Criticism\nand the problems with which the minds of men have been confronted\nthrough the advance of science has been that in the readjustment of\nthought and life which is going on all about us, men have grown aware\nthat they are not fighting their battles alone, but that far and near\nare kindred spirits going through a like struggle, and even that those\nwhom they had fancied foemen were really their allies. This is the\nbeginning of a movement wider and deeper than the so-called religious\ncontroversies which embitter the surface of our political life, the\nprelude to a new and wider Catholicism of the spirit, in which all the\nservants of Truth and humanity may unite without sacrifice of conviction\nin a sense of true brotherhood. Something of this underlying unity is\nrecognised both in the supreme moments of our individual lives and in\ngreat times of national crisis, such as [p.17 ] come in the birthpangs\nof a new movement or the brave endeavour to stem some rising tide of\nevil. Thus it came about that in the great uprising of German democracy\nof 1848, the colours which symbolised the new hopes of the people were\noften consecrated by a public religious ceremony in which all faiths\nunited, and in the little Bavarian town of Furth, the Jewish Rabbi, as\nrepresenting the smallest denomination of the town, was by common\nconsent chosen to perform the ceremony. But we do not need to go so far\nback or to such a distant place to find instances of the way in which\nmen of varying creed have found themselves uniting with those who are\nopposed to all forms of religion in defence of some common cause,\ninspired by some uniting ideal, though but dimly realized. Here, surely,\nis the truest test of that which is Catholic, the /quod semper, quod\nubique, quod ab omnibus/, which the dogmas of theology can but\nimperfectly explain, but which is realized even now by all who seek to\nserve whole-heartedly the truth, and therefore, too, their fellowmen.\n\nThere remains a further practical question to be faced. If we recognise\nthat the good finds expression in various ways, that men in act and\nthought alike may differ from each other, and yet the inner source of\ntheir spiritual life may be the same, are we to abandon the endeavour to\nfind some intellectual synthesis of their divergent ideals? Must we\ncease to attempt to express [p.18] in terms of thought that which we\nrecognize as transcending all human thought and much more our imperfect\nterms? Surely this would be a mistake. Though not only for our own lives\nbut for the whole life of humanity upon the earth it should prove that\nour processes of creed building and church making are necessarily\nimperfect, we must still for ever strive to express in thought and in\nact the life of the spirit, which grows and deepens as it is faithfully\nexpressed. Creed and deed alike, we feel, are but the raiment of the\nlife; they fade and are outgrown, yet they are not to be fiercely torn\nto pieces or lightly thrown aside. Even though we may never hope to be\nable to explain to ourselves or to others the common basis of our\nethical ideals and of our religious life, we must never cease to try to\nfind some explanation and to give what expression to it we can.\n\nThe vision of truth that we have now, our intellectual expression of our\nrelationship to the world, and of our duty in it, is we recognise,\nimperfect; it is no key to the universe, to unlock every mystery for us,\nstill less for others; but it may prove a sufficient lamp, and one whose\nrays grow ever brighter, to light our footsteps onward or (to change the\nmetaphor) it may be a clue to the great labyrinth about us which may be\nof use to others besides ourselves, though some may come to the goal by\na very different way. Certainly the experience of all the great mystics\nwould [p.19] seem to show that as we ascend the Heavenly mountain, one\nfrom one side, one from another, our paths draw nearer to each other,\nand so across the night between, we may listen to our fellow pilgrims'\nvoices, and realize that some day we shall meet face to face.\n\n\n    CHAPTER II. THE INNER LIFE OF THE CHURCH\n\nIT is difficult for us, and some may even feel that it is impossible, to\nmake an impartial survey of an institution of which we ourselves form a\npart; on the other hand, it is equally difficult, unless one can realize\nsomething of its life from the inside, to appreciate the real nature of\nthat life. And thus it must ever be peculiarly hard for us to understand\nthe true relationship of the Christian churches to the world in which\nthey work and to the ideal which guides them. And yet as we seek to see\nthe difficulties others feel, and to enter into sympathy alike with the\ncritic without and the workers within, we may come near at least to\nunderstanding some portion of the truth. It may remain true that \"all we\nhave power to see is a straight staff bent in a pool,\" but as we\nendeavour to clear our minds and hearts of prejudice and to use others'\neyes as well as our own, the pool grows clearer and the reflection\nbecomes less broken, and more nearly an image of the reality it represents.\n\nTo see the failure of the Church does not mean that we ignore its\nvictories: but if we are to carry [p.21] those victories further, it\nmust be by noting our shortcomings, and all that we have not achieved.\nLooking out upon the life of men to-day, we cannot forget how, bad as it\nis, society has been again and again in large measure redeemed and kept\nalive through lives that have been the light and strength of the Church\nas well as of the world, but this need not prevent us from seeing how\nfar the Church as a whole has failed to act in the same way.\n\nOrganised Christianity to-day in England, as represented in the\nchurches, is very largely a middle class institution. Not only the very\nrich, but the great mass of the poorer workers, stand aloof from it. It\nhas not given its strength to prophesy against the evils that attack our\nsocial life; and to remedy above all that utter separation of the lives\nof rich and poor, employer and employed, which is the terrible\ncharacteristic of twentieth-century urban civilisation.\n\nThere is much religious \"activity,\" of a limited kind, using old and\nrecognised channels of expression, and an earnestness in defence of\nparticular religious views or in attacking particular errors of doctrine\nor forms of worship. But if we can for a moment forget our own\nindividual standpoint and endeavour to look from the point of view of an\noutsider upon such religious enthusiasm as shows itself upon different\nsides in , let us say the present education controversy. we shall surely\nfeel that if this represents the life of the churches, they [p.22] are\nfar indeed removed from the spirit of their Founder.\n\n\"I love to see these Christians fight,\" was the remark of one able\ncritic as he left a room where a public body had been engaged in\ndiscussing some phase of the \"religious difficulty\" in education. It is\ntrue that such a charge is no new one; as far back as the middle of the\nsecond century the philosopher Celsus brought a like one against the\nChristians of his day. [1] But since those early days too,\nthere has been continual protest within the Church against this very\nspirit, and it has been in that series of protests that some, perhaps,\nmay trace the true apostolic succession of teachers and guides. Age\nafter age these leaders have found new help and inspiration as they\nturned toward the source from which the strength of the Church first\nsprang, and it is noteworthy that now, as often in the past many of the\nmen who are estranged from the Church have nothing but respect \u2014 nay,\noften reverence \u2014 in their thought of Christ and of these followers of\nHis. They would have very different thoughts of Christianity if all who\nprofess and call themselves Christians had realised that ideal of the\nmeaning of the name by which they are [p.23 ] called which William Penn\nonce expressed in the words, \"To be like Christ, then is to be a Christian.\"\n\nIf only we had all more clearly before us that vision, we could not but\nbe filled not merely with burning shame at our own failure, but with\nlonging to be more helpful to our fellows, and to draw nearer to them,\nas we would grow nearer to our spirit. And this desire within us will\nsurely be strengthened as we turn towards that wonderful reflection of\nHis teaching gathered together for us in the closing chapters of the\nGospel of John. In that unique picture of the mind and heart of the\nMaster there are traits over which we some- times pause and wonder;\nsayings which, when we can free our eyes from the scales with which\ncustom has covered them, seem to shine with a light brighter than we can\nbear. And in that chapter, in which we listen as silent witnesses to the\ngreat charter of futurity, the prayer of the Founder for His Church that\nis to be, there are words which are so full of lofty purpose that we\nhesitate to apply them to our lives; unconsciously, perhaps, we have\nbeen wont to read them over and treat them as metaphor, meant to inspire\nbut not to be realized; and gradually we have lost hold of their true\nsignificance, the inner life of thought beyond them. How truly can we\nsay that we have realized, as individuals or as a Church, this picture\nwhich that prayer gives us of the Master's aim and desire for us? [p.24]\n\n\"And I am no more in the world, and these are in the world, and I come\nto Thee. Holy Father, keep them in Thy name which Thou hast given me,\n/that they may be one, even as we are/. . . . Neither for these only do\nI pray, but for them also that believe on Me through their word; /that\nthey may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee,/\nthat they also may be one in us: /that the/ /world may believe that Thou\ndidst send Me/.\"\n\nSo lofty is the thought that one may wonder whether, if these words had\nnot come down to us as they have done, and some later Christian mystic\nhad dared to utter this as his ideal, he would not have been treated as\na madman or a heretic. It is hard to think of what it means: a unity of\nChristians one with another, even as there is unity between the Divine\nFather and the unique Son.\n\nIn the bygone days of scholastic theology men might have gone on to\nunfold the meaning of this by showing how unity of substance did not\nremove the difference of person; But these thoughts do not live for us\nto-day as for our forefathers. We must seek to find the meaning of\nChrist's union with the Father, not by the road of medieval metaphysics,\nbut by some method which may appeal to our moral consciousness.\n\nIs it not a fact that Christ is most truly revealed to us as in unity\nwith the Father in his identification of himself with suffering and\ndegraded humanity, as most truly Divine when he eats with publicans and\nsinners, pours out his strength [p.25] for the sick and suffering, and\nhis life for those who have rejected him and at best have misunderstood him?\n\nThe Church, then, is most likely to attain to that inward unity for\nwhich her Founder prayed by following the guidance of his life. She will\nbe most like him in laying upon herself and claiming as her own the\nsufferings and evils that befall or should befall, men in the world\nwithout; least like him and least likely to attain this Divine unity\nwhen she claims rights and privileges for herself, when she insists on\nher superiority, when she turns from her the publican and sinner, or\nleaves them to meet the punishment which is their due.\n\nThe union of Christians with each other is to be witness to the world of\nthe Divine mission of Jesus. Men are to believe on him because they see\nhow his life and spirit hold together communities with differing\norganisations and men of widely varying personality. The union is not to\ndestroy personality or variety of character, but to underlie all\ndifference. It is no external machinery to unite us in a single visible\norganisation by which individuality would be stamped out or fettered in\ngrowth. There is little trace of any such machinery in the earliest\nhistory of the Church, and the ages and places where it has been most\nperfect have not been those which we think of as nearest in spirit to\nChrist, nor those men most like Him whose lives have been spent merely\nin the development of such organisation. [p.26 ]\n\nPerhaps the only one of the first group of disciples who possessed\npowers of organisation was Judas Iscariot; and some critics may say that\nhe at least has had an apostolic succession of followers throughout the\nhistory of the Church. One remembers the terrible saying of Renan [2]\n<#_edn2>: L'histoire de l'Eglise sera le plus souvent d\u00e9sormais\nl'histoire des trahisons que subira l'id\u00e9e de Jesus; and though no\nchurches have been dedicated to SS. Ananias and Sapphira, they have\nbecome in practice the patrons of too many Christian lives. But if we\ncannot wish for an external unity such as that for which many good men\nplead, we have, nevertheless, constantly to strive after a deeper union\nof spirit in the service of our fellows, in the search after truth, in\nlove to our Lord.\n\nFirst let us take our need of sincerity. Perhaps nothing so holds many\nmen of to-day from Christ as the sense of the insincerity of those who\ncall themselves Christians. Our worship, our hymns and prayers, are full\nof unreality; we persuade ourselves, perhaps, that we still believe in\ndogmas which have ceased to have any influence upon our lives. We shut\nour eyes to new truths because we are really afraid to be free, and what\nwas the chalice of a new truth to our fathers becomes a poison-cup to us\nand our children. If the Church is to regain and to retain the respect\nof honest thinkers we must welcome fair-minded inquiry wherever it be\ndirected, and not fear to open our eyes to the sun. [p.27]\n\nAnd it is not only intellectual sincerity in accepting new truths that\nis needed; if the old truths are to be made real to our day, we must be\nprepared to translate them into language which people can understand. It\nis worse than useless often to attempt to hand them on in the garments\nof old words by which they were clothed in former days, for as truth is\na living thing, and words fade and lose their meaning, the form in which\nit is rightly expressed must change from age to age. It is not enough,\nthen, to repeat some passage of Scripture, some familiar verse of\nreligious poetry, or some words of a man of God of former days, to bring\nhelp to men to-day, even though the words are full of meaning to us\nbecause we have entered into the inward experience which they represent.\nSome have heard the words so often that they are now almost meaningless;\nothers cannot be touched by a mode of thought which was the outcome of\nanother time. They need the truths that lie behind the old words and the\noutworn methods of thinking, but they must be re-expressed if they are\nto reach them.\n\nThe eternal realities of which the New Testament writers had hold, which\nfilled their souls and made them struggle with words and metaphors to\nexpress some glimpse of what they felt, could never be completely\nrepresented by any language. Yet we have taken the words of the\nScripture and treated them as though they were so many phials of truth\nin solution. The exquisite flowers of love and [p.28] faith have been\ncrushed and bruised in the mortar of the theologians to produce the\ninfallible dogmas of our orthodoxy. But the inward life does not live\nupon the abstractions of the theologian any more than our outward life\nupon the compressed drugs of the chemist, however perfect the process of\ntheir making may have been. Cannot we, then, honestly confess that our\ndogmas are but imperfect human attempts to fathom the deep things of\nGod, symbols that stand for something which transcends them as much as\nthe mother's face surpasses the poor drawing which her child may make of\nit? Such a drawing can only be understood by the eyes of love, and we\nneed the same spirit to make our dogmas full of meaning.\n\nIt is not only in intellectual matters that the Church has been\ninsincere. Many who are no thinkers feel that she has not honestly\nattempted to carry out her own teachings. \"Blessed are the gentle,\"\n\"Blessed are the poor in spirit,\" are explained in many a commentary,\nbut illustrated by too few lives. Yet the only adequate commentary on\nthe beatitudes is the life of a real follower of Christ.\n\nThe fact is that many Christians think that by bowing down in worship\nbefore Christ they are His followers, forgetting His own test for such:\n\"Why call ye Me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?\" We\nwrite of Him, it may be, as Our Lord with capital letters, when He is\nnot our lord at all, nor the master and controller of our lives. [p.29]\nThere is a great deal of false reverence about this lip-worship of\nphrase and form that actually keeps us from getting as near as we might\nto the true spirit of followers of Christ.\n\nIf we are lovers and followers of the truth as Jesus bids us be, we must\nrecognise our kinship and comradeship with all others who sincerely seek\nthe truth, even though they may attack us and fail for the moment to see\nall the light which may shine in our eyes so clearly: in the mere search\nafter truth their souls are turned towards the light and unconsciously\nfed and aided by the Source of all truth! Nor must we think of them our\nblind brothers merely, for they may be fighting a far greater army of\nfoes than we, placed as out-posts of the hosts of God, surrounded by the\nenemy and overborne themselves for a while, that afterwards the\nvictorious ranks of their comrades may press on over their bodies to\nconquests of which we have not even dreamed.\n\nAnd how far have we failed in unity with our Master and each other\nthrough our not having learnt His lesson of the way of service, of our\ntrue relationship to our fellows?\n\nYet here and there across the pages of history shines the light of a\ngood life pointing us the true way, and how by losing ourselves we find\nourselves.\n\nThe bearing of the Cross which Jesus enjoined upon His followers is far\nother than that asceticism which monk and nun and Puritan have wasted\nmany a precious life to attain. We have not to give [p.30] up the\npleasant thing because it is pleasant, or because it gives only a\nmundane and transitory joy. Joy is good, and not to be avoided, but\nwelcomed. We have to give up the pleasant thing ourselves, others may\ntake it in our stead; or give up a large measure of it that they may\nshare it with us. We do not lose the joy, or pretend that it is unreal\nand transitory as the monk may. It is very real, and we feel it in a\nsense we could not do before, because our fellows share it or have it in\nplace of us, and our life is their life. Gladness which they feel we\nmust feel too.\n\nThis is the difference between the monk of the desert and Francis of\nAssisi, the apostle of the joy of Christ . The monk battles with himself\nto maintain his vow of poverty; he is constantly giving up in not\npossessing things for himself, or in renouncing pleasures which attract\nhim. St. Francis in possessing nothing has all things, for all are God's\nand his fellows', and he is theirs. The wide world is his cloister, and\neverything which he can do to gladden his brother gives joy to himself.\nTrue Christianity like his is full of an infectious sense of the joy of\nlife. Whenever such men go there comes to others some touch of their\nspirit, as crumbs drop from a full table.\n\nThis faith that joy in itself is good does not mean that there may not\nbe needful for us all some form of true asceticism, training in\nwithholding from things good in themselves and from pleasures we desire,\nquite apart from the surrendering [p.31] of them to others. But needful\nas this is, it is good only as training for an end beyond itself, and\nnot for the mere sake of abstinence. We refrain that we may be masters\nof our wills, that we may keep control of habit, that our bodies may be\nthe instrument of our spirits; such fasting as this only fits us more\nfully for the joy of service.\n\nDeeper even than the sacrament of joy is that of sorrow, and we may\nlearn something of it from John Woolman, the Quaker apostle of Christ's\nsufferings. Where men suffered he suffered too in spirit with them. When\nhe came on his last journey to England he could not travel in the\ncomfortable cabin because of the needless toil of the workmen that had\ngone to adorn it, but must share with the poor sailors the foul air and\ndiscomfort of the steerage. And when on the stormy passage across the\nAtlantic he lay there sick and in pain, his heart went up in\nthankfulness that he was permitted to share the experience which so many\nof his fellow-men had to go through, and be united thus to suffering\nhumanity. \"I was now desirous,\" he tells us, \"to embrace every\nopportunity of being inwardly acquainted with the hardships and\ndifficulties of my fellow-creatures, and to labour in His love for the\nspreading of pure righteousness on the earth.\" Then we shall remember,\ntoo, that beautiful passage near the close of his journal, where he\nrecalls the vision that came to him in time of sickness of that mass of\ndull, gloomy colour, made up of [p.32] human beings in as great misery\nas they could be and live, and how he was told that he was mixed with\nthem and henceforth might not consider himself a separate being. The\nangel's song, \"John Woolman is dead,\" sounded to him more pure and\nlovely than any he had ever heard before, for in truth his old will was\ndead, and in him the spirit of Christ was alive.\n\nIs it not here that the Church will find the way to reconcile the world\nof toilers and sufferers estranged from her to-day? \u2014 in that unity\nbetween her members which goes deeper even than membership, in a love to\nChrist which shows itself, as He calls for it, towards all who have need\nof Him, which identifies the Christian with his brothers, the doers and\nbearers of wrong?\n\nAs we look out upon a Christendom divided by sects and creeds into a\nscore of different bodies, we may be saddened by the lament which many a\ndevout lip has uttered over the schisms which rend the mystic robe of\nthe Master. But it was only His outer garments which the soldiers rent\nasunder: the seamless robe is unsevered still. External separation does\nnot touch the spirit of love and true communion which beneath countless\nouter differences unites together the lives of all who follow Him in\ndeed and in truth. And as we each draw nearer to Him, and His life flows\ninto our lives, we must draw nearer to each other and to all our fellow-men.\n\n\n    CHAPTER III. THE PROPHET IN THE CHURCH.\n\nFOR the individual and the community alike the deepest influences are\nexpressed in life rather than words, yet it remains true that through\nthe symbols of spoken thought life must again and again come to\nexpression. In former days this was realised in the value set upon\nprophecy, if we may use the word in its broadest and highest sense, as\nthe forth-telling, in the language of human thought, of the Divine will\npresent behind our lives and at work amid the world.\n\nOne of the changes that strike one most in organized Christianity\nto-day, compared with the Church of earlier times, is the general\nabsence of prophecy in this sense, in all but very occasional crises.\nThe prophetic instinct is not dead indeed, but men find its highest\nmanifestations rather outside the Church of earlier times. The leaders\nof the Church have been too often content to repeat the messages of the\nprophets of a former day rather than to seek for a living voice within\ntheir midst. Yet those who know anything of the life of the Church from\nwithin, judged not merely by this incomplete [p.34 ]expression, but seen\nas it affects the daily lives of countless men and women, must surely\nagree that in spite of all the trammels of convention and tradition the\nChurch has still a life to pass on and a message to deliver for the\nneeds of to-day. Those who would have it become once more the school of\nthe prophets will surely be willing to look for a few moments at the\npicture which has come down to us of what place prophecy filled in the\nChurch life of the earliest days, and how the prophet was supplanted,\nnot killed, as some have thought, by the priest, but rather silenced by\nthe iron grip of organization.\n\nIn the fourteenth chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians is\npreserved for us a picture the meetings of an early Christian Church,\nfull of interest to the historian.\n\nIt is clear from this description that an important part was usually\ntaken in these gatherings by men who gave to their fellow worshippers\nwhat they believed to be God's message or revelation to them. This was\nsomething quite distinct from the recitation of a hymn or a passage of\nScripture, or from the interpretation of scripture, or again from the\nteaching of doctrine. It is regarded by the Apostle Paul as the highest\nspiritual gift, one earnestly to be desired, although it was not given\nto all, but only to some. Of the nature of this ministry we get a\nglimpse in his description of the way in which an unbeliever who enters\nthe assembly is convinced by it. [p.35] The ministry goes to his inmost\nself, reading the needs of his heart.\n\n\"If all prophesy, and there come in one that believeth not, or one\nunlearned, he is convinced of all, he is judged of all: and thus are the\nsecrets of his heart made manifest; and so falling down on his face he\nwill worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth.[3] <#_edn3>\n\nThe message of prophecy is one, as it seems, which reaches the\nsubconscious self of the incomer, who suddenly beholds the realities of\nhis own inner life in this flood of light that flows in upon him,\npiercing through the veil that custom and convention had wrought about\nhim. But the prophetic word does not merely give this fuller knowledge\nof his own nature to the stranger; it puts him also into touch with a\nhigher self. He sees in a flash of revelation not only the evil in his\nown life, but the source of power to set it right, here in the midst of\nthis assembly, and bowing himself before it he confesses the Divine\nPresence.\n\nIf we ask how this prophetic ministry is conceived as coming to those\nwho exercise it, it would seem from the words of the Apostle that it is\nnot by exercise of the intellect that prophecy comes, though the\nunderstanding is to be cultivated in connection with another highly\nprized gift, that of teaching. But the Corinthians are urged to long\nafter the gift of prophecy most of all; they [p.36] are to prepare\nthemselves for it, then, by prayer, the door through which our life\nopens out into the Divine life and is fed from it. The teacher thinks\nover what he knows of the needs and difficulties of his fellows, ponders\nover the truths that have been made clear to him in the past, searches\namongst the sayings of the Lord, the teachings of the Apostles, the\nwords of the Law or the prophets of old, for help for the present. Not\nso the prophet. He may, indeed, go through all this preparation of\nthought, but the essential preparation for his work is prayer; prayer in\nwhich he must be willing to lay aside, if need be, all these thoughts of\nthis. The prophetic spirit reaches out to realize the condition of those\nto whom it is to minister, and upward in search of light and strength\nfrom its only source.\n\nSometimes it is not given to the prophet to reach conscious hold of Him\nby whom we are all upheld, and then all his ministry may be but a cry\nfor help, with a deep sense of need. Sometimes he feels the presence\nvery near, and as he keeps close to the Father's hand, those about him\nare given to feel it too.\n\nOr, perhaps, some word of the Lord, or some thought of other days is\nsuddenly illumined by a fresh light, and his message is to hand on the\nfire from the altar, that those about him may light their torches too.\n\nThe prophet is God's spokesman. He must lose thought of himself in his\nmessage. He is [p.37] translating for others and to others in the\npresence of the Giver of the message. He must keep in touch with those\nto whom he is speaking. He must remember too how easy it is for\ninterpreters to expand and embroider upon the original, and thus to mar\nit. And, therefore, the prophet should keep very close to the Giver of\nthe message, who may have given to others its fuller exposition.\n\nOne danger of the prophets of Corinth was very present to St. Paul's mind.\n\nSome of them seem to have got so wrapt up in a sense of the Divine\ncommunion that they did not keep that control of their whole nature,\nwhich would lead them to find expression in the language of\nintelligence. Carried away by their feelings they gave utterance to the\nexperience of their spirit in words broken and unintelligible, the\nchannels of word and thought over which their brains had control seemed\ntoo small for the flood of emotion which swept out in overmastering\npower, so that their tongues moved and they spoke without knowing what\nthey said. Paul knew better than any of them the hidden things of the\nSpirit, the groanings that cannot be uttered, the thoughts that flash\nupon us and cannot be caught up by our halting reason, following slowly\nafter, the striving of the soul that no words can compass, the God-given\nintuitions which cannot be imprisoned in words.\n\nBut he knew too that language was given us not for the joy of expressing\nwhat we feel but as [p.38] a means of sharing our experience with\nothers. To speak with an unknown tongue, to abandon oneself to the\necstasy of the moment, may be right for our own life, he writes, but it\nis useless for our fellows. We must not be content to soar up ourselves\ninto the world of life and light, we must try to bring back into our\nworld of sense some symbols of the truths of the world beyond,\nimprisoning in words which men may understand fragments of the truths\nwhich can never wholly be expressed in words.\n\nAt times the message burns so within the prophet's breast that he feels\nhe must speak, no matter what is happening about him. Thus it seems that\nsometimes at Corinth two or three prophets would speak at once, and mar\neach other's messages. But this was to lose sight of their true place,\nto forget that the message was given them that others might receive it.\n\nThe prophet, he writes, is still master of his own spirit: he is not to\nallow his reason to lose its right control. He has to use his\nintelligence in deciding when he is to speak and when he must hold\nsilence. He has not to let his conscious self be submerged in the\nsub-conscious, like an island beneath the waves of the surrounding sea;\nrather is he to gather on to its dry land the goods the waves have\nbrought him, before he sends them forth again to other shores. In this\nway may the Divine message not only bring help to him but comfort to all\nto whom it is sent. [p.39] Thus the picture of the Church of Corinth and\nSt. Paul's advice for its needs is one to which men may look who are\nseeking to-day for that true prophetic ministry which seemed to the\nApostle the most important of the gifts of the Spirit to the Christian\nChurch.\n\nIt may help us too to consider how far that gift has been present\nthroughout the succeeding ages, and how far it has been hindered by the\nChurch from finding its true exercise.\n\nWhen next we get a glimpse of the Church at Corinth, more than a\ngeneration has passed away, and probably few of those who were members\nwhen St. Paul wrote are still alive. The majority of the church is in\ndisagreement with its Elders or Bishops, and has deposed them from their\npositions; and the Bishop of Rome, Clement writes in the name of his\nchurch, in reply to some letter from the Corinthians, to urge them to be\nreconciled, and give once more the honour that is their due to these\nworthy presbyters. The first epistle of Clement is a long and beautiful\nletter, and enters with tact and deep concern into a discussion of the\ndissension that is troubling the peace of the Corinthians, but it makes\nno mention whatever of the place of prophecy in the Church. The word\nprophet does occur twice in the epistle, but only in reference to the\nOld Testament.\n\nAt the same time it is clear that Clement is very sensible of the\nimportance of the position of [p.40] the bishops or presbyters, though\nit is not quite clear whether these are wholly distinct offices.\nApparently the Church at Corinth was trying, in the spirit of Greek\ndemocracy, to dispense with its church officers. Clement tells them [4]\nhow the Apostles went about setting up bishops and deacons\namongst the first fruits of their converts in different cities; these\noffices had even been foreseen ages before, he notes, by the prophet\nIsaiah (Ix. 17). [5] <#_edn5>\n\nIt was not right, he urges, that men who had been appointed by the\napostles and afterwards by other men of renown, with the consent and\napproval of the whole Church, who had fulfilled their duties without\nblame, should now be cast out of their offices.\n\nIf we turn to another group of letters, written some twelve years later\nby Ignatius of Antioch, on his way to martyrdom at Rome, we find, again,\nthat the only references to prophets and prophecy deal with old\nTestament days, but that the greatest importance is set by Ignatius upon\nthe relations of the Church to its Bishop: \"Do all of you,\" he bids the\nChurch of Smyrna, [6] \"follow the Bishop, as Jesus Christ the\nFather, and follow the College of Presbyters as the Apostles, and give\nheed to the deacons as God's commandment. Let no man do anything of\nthose things that appertain to the Church apart from the Bishop. Let\nthat Eucharist be accounted valid that is under the authority of the\nBishop or of him to whomsoever he himself entrusts it. Wheresoever the\nBishop appeareth there let the multitude be, even as wheresoever Christ\nJesus is there is the Catholic Church. It is not lawful apart from the\nBishop either to baptise or to hold an Agape, but whatsoever he approves\nthat is also well pleasing to God; that all that is done may be safe and\nvalid.\" (According to present Catholic doctrine even a woman may validly\nbaptize.)\n\nWe see at once that it would not be easy to fit into such an ordered\nChurch as this prophets like those of the earliest Church in Corinth.\n\nBut while in most of the larger towns the churches had been developing\nalong lines like these it would seem that at the same time there were\nout of the way places in which a much more primitive tradition was\npreserved.\n\nWe can get some idea of this from the passages in the Didache which\nrefer to prophets and travelling apostles.\n\nTwo whole chapters of this ancient book of teaching (xi. and xiii.) are\ndevoted to this subject, whereas only the briefest mention is made of\nbishops and deacons, and in these words, \"Elect then for yourselves\nbishops and deacons, worthy of the Lord, men gentle and not money\nloving, true and tested, for they too themselves offer to you the\nservice of the prophets and teachers; [p.42] \"Despise them not then, for\nthese are they who are honoured of you along with the prophets and\nteachers.\"\n\nThus it would seem that the bishops and deacons are chosen by the Church\nfor its work, perhaps in default of sufficiency of prophets and\nteachers, to do the work which these would do, and they seem at least to\nneed, in the writer's eyes, to be supported by an appeal which he would\nnot think of making on behalf of the prophet and teacher whose messages\ncarry within themselves their authority. That the true prophet stands,\nin his eyes, above the human ordering of the church, seems clear too,\nfrom the section which gives instructions as to the words (and very\nbeautiful words they are too) of the eucharistic prayer (ch. x.). At the\nconclusion of this model prayer the writer adds: \"but allow the prophets\nto offer thanks as much as they choose.\"\n\nWarning of almost naive simplicity is given against dangers from false\nprophets. Apparently the temptation to emotional enthusiasm is not\nbefore the writer's mind, as it was before Paul's in writing to Corinth.\nThe travelling evangelist, or apostle, as he is called, is to be\nreceived \"as the Lord,\" but if he stay for as long as three days he is\nto be recognised as a false prophet. The readers are warned not to judge\nthe prophet who speaks in the spirit, this being treated as the sin\nagainst the Holy Ghost.\n\n\"But not every man who speaks in the spirit [p.43] is a prophet,\" the\nwriter goes on,\" but only if he have the ways of the Lord,\" thus making\nthe character of Christ the objective standard by which prophets are judged.\n\n\"From their ways then shall the false prophet and the prophet be known,\nand every prophet who appoints a feast in the spirit does not eat of it,\nunless, indeed, he be a false prophet, and every prophet who teaches the\ntruth, if he does not do that which he teaches, is a false prophet.\" The\nreaders are warned against judging the prophet who does some strange\nsymbolic act for the edification of the Church without bidding others to\ndo as he does,\" for even thus also did the ancient prophets.\" \"But whoso\nsaith in the spirit Give me money, or any other things, to him ye shall\nnot hearken; but if he speak concerning others who are in need, and bids\nmen give, let no man judge him\" (ch. xi.). The true prophet who is\nwilling to settle amongst them is worthy of his keep, they are told, and\nso is the true teacher; \"and so,\" the writer continues, \"ye shall take\nevery first- fruit of the produce of your wine-press and threshing\nfloor, of your oxen and of your flocks, and shall give to the prophets,\nfor they are your high priests.\n\n\"But if ye have not a prophet give to the poor; and so likewise with\nbread, oil and wine, with\n\nmoney, clothes and all other things\" (ch. xiii.).\n\nHere we have, perhaps, the hint of a transitional stage between the\nearly church of Corinth and the churches of Clement and Ignatius. The\nprophet [p.44] has the first place of honour and next to him the teacher\nbut all churches have not their prophet, and in these bishops and\ndeacons must act in the place of prophets and teachers, and be honoured\nas such, while in other churches the prophets and teachers were treated\nas a sort of Christian priest, and one may see how their work came to be\nregarded as a regular church office and gradually assimilated, in church\nafter church to the offices customary in the larger congregations like\nRome and Antioch. As time passes the place of the prophet is more and\nmore taken by the bishop, and by the end of the second century it would\nseem, that, for such a bishop of the Church Catholic as Apollinaris of\nHierapolis, the prophet was a memory of the distant past.\n\nThe Montanist movement in Phrygia had owed its strength to the appeal\nwhich it made to the prophetic tradition and the prophetic spirit. In\nthe reign of Marcus Aurelius, the Phrygian convert Montanus had gone\ninto prophetic ecstasies which shocked the more orderly members of the\nchurch, and a separation ensued, in which Montanus was joined by two\nprophetesses, Prisca and Maximilla; they continued for some time, it\nwould seem, to appeal to those within the greater church to recognise\nthem, for a fragment of Maximilla which is preserved to us, runs thus:\n\n\"I am chased like a wolf from the flock; I am wolf, I am utterance,\nspirit and power.\" (Eusebius v.\u00a7 16). [p. 45]\n\nSome, like Tertullian, listened; but the Church, as a whole, was\nfrightened at the excesses of their enthusiasm and probably, as a\nresult, prophecy became more than ever suspect. Irenaeus, it is true,\nmentions amongst the Divine gifts still given to Christians in his day,\nthat some have the knowledge of things to come, as also visions and\nprophetic communications (Eus. v. \u00a7 7), but this certainly does not\nimply any frequent and general gift like that in the early church of\nCorinth.\n\nHis contemporary Alcibiades, indeed, writes a book to demonstrate the\nimpropriety of a prophet's speaking in ecstasy, which Apollinaris\nabridged (Eus. v. \u00a7 17). The good bishop of Hierapolis was very earnest\nin his attack against the Montanists: \"They will never be able to show,\"\nhe writes, \"that any in the Old or New Testament were thus violently\nagitated and carried away in spirit. Neither will they be able to boast\nthat Agabus or Judas or Silas or the daughters of Phillip or Ammia, in\nPhiladelphia, or Quadratus or others, that do not belong to them, ever\nacted in this way.\" It is very significant that the latest examples of\neminent prophets in the Church here named, are Quadratus and Ammia.\nAmmia appears to be unknown to Eusebius, who alludes to her in this\nchapter as \"one Ammia,\" but Quadratus he has mentioned in a previous\nbook as a prophet contemporary with Ignatius, in these words: \"Of those\nthat flourished in these times Quadratus is said to have been\ndistinguished for his prophetical gifts. There [p.46] were many others\nalso noted in these times who held the first rank in the apostolic\nsuccession.\" (iii. \u00a7 37); whether this Quadratus is to be identified\nwith the philosopher who wrote an apology for Christianity to Hadrian\n(iv.\u00a7 3) is uncertain.\n\nIt seems from the words of Apollinaris, which Eusebius goes on to quote\n(v. \u00a7 17), that the Montanists claimed that their prophets and\nprophetesses were the successors of Ammia and Quadratus, but Maximilla\nhad now been dead for some years, and the bishop challenges his\nopponents to point to any living prophet who had succeeded her: \"And if\nyou have no succession of prophets then,\" he urges, \"you must give up\nyour claim to represent the Christian Church. (For the apostle shows\nthat the gift of prophecy shall be in all the church until the coming of\nthe Lord).\" What would have been the bishop's answer if the Montanists\nhad turned on him with the demand that he, too, should produce his\nliving prophets within the pale of the great church? In view of what he\nhas told us, may we not believe that his answer would be somewhat on\nthis wise: \"The gift of prophecy has never been removed from the church;\nthough it may be dormant as far as such prophecies as those of Quadratus\nare concerned, it may be called forth again at any time by the Divine\nwill, and will be recognised at once by the bishops, who are the\ndivinely appointed authorities, without whose approval no true prophet\nwill act. And if there be no such prophets [p.47] now, in any church,\nthe bishop takes their place, expounding as is fit the will of the Lord\nto the people, and guided himself by the Holy Spirit\"? How are we to\nexplain this remarkable change that we have thus witnessed, and was it\nthe necessary and right development of the Church which led to it?\n\nTo those who know how, in the seventeenth century, another experiment\nwas begun, which after nearly nine generations, is not yet ended, in the\nholding together of religious communities of which an essential feature\nhas always been the freedom of prophesying, it may, at first sight, seem\neasy to reply that the change was no necessary one.\n\nOne would not say that they were wrong, for who can say what might not\nhave been, if men had only been faithful to their highest ideals, and\nbeen willing always to take the rough and narrow way that leads straight\nup to the heavenly city? But we shall, perhaps judge more fairly if we\nthink how very much greater were the difficulties that beset the\nChristian organisms of the first and second centuries, than those, great\nas they were, with which George Fox had to grapple. He had, it is true,\nto deal with companies of men and women, amongst whom were enthusiasts\nor individualistic quietists, who would brook no discipline, and many of\nthem were poor and very ignorant folk; but how different in many cases\nwas a church of the first century. Imagine a [p.48] community of varying\nnationalities, containing a number of slaves, many of them illiterate\npeople, others degraded by their past life to the lowest depths; men and\nwomen rescued from lives of terrible evil and still under constant\ntemptation to fall back; a number of Christian Jews with strange\noriental customs and traditions, half- familiar only with the language\nand civilisation of their adopted town; a few men, possibly, of higher\nsocial position and greater education, but the majority only able to\ncommunicate with each other by a lingua franca of bad Greek, which was\nthe native tongue only of a small minority. One can see what a babel of\nconfusion might easily arise amongst such a community, especially when\nwe remember that many had but an imperfect knowledge of Christ and His\nteaching, and very few churches possessed all the works which we have in\nour New Testament.\n\nMoreover, a great change had come from the days of Paul's letter to the\nCorinthians. That little church was then still living in the days when\nthe Christians as such were tolerated by the law. Gallio's decision had\nremoved the church at Corinth from any need to observe secrecy.\n\nBut after two generations the position had wholly changed, and to be a\nChristian was a penal offence which, if adhered to, was punishable with\ndeath. This necessarily involved a need for greater precaution, for more\norder and wise management in the assembling of the Church. [p.49] And in\nthe early days when the churches lived in constant expectation of the\nimmediate end of the age and the outward coming of Christ to set up His\nKingdom, they would naturally lay little stress on church order; the\nstruggle of the church militant was but to last a brief time more; there\nwas no need for much organisation, or for any other connection between\none church and another than the friendly ties of love. One church might\nhave its prophets and teachers, another only presbyters or a bishop and\ndeacons; others of larger size and needs might have ail these officers\ntogether with deaconesses and widows. But no one was anxious about such\ndifferences. Travelling apostles and evangelists formed living links of\nlove betwixt church and church, and occasionally, individuals and\nchurches sent letters to each other. No other bond was needed.\n\nBut when it became slowly more evident that the Church might yet have to\ncontinue long years at work in the world before the consummation came,\nand when it seemed to the leaders that they had to fight a life and\ndeath struggle, on the one hand against the vast force of the world\nempire of Rome, whenever a persecuting edict might be enforced, and on\nthe other against a growing crowd of strange errors, which seemed to\nthem to be sent by the Devil to delude the hearts of the faithful, and\ndraw them away from the Gospel of Christ; can we wonder that they did\ntheir best to draw the scattered communities of [p.50] Christians to a\nsense of unity under a like organization, adapted for a strenuous fight\nto preserve the good order of the Church from being shattered by\npersecutions from without or broken up and corrupted by false or\nmistaken brethren from within. And often, too, especially under the fire\nof persecution, something of the true prophetic spirit showed itself in\nthe bishops themselves, as they admonished their fellow believers to be\nfaithful even unto death, and beheld, amidst the shadow of death,\nvisions of the deep things of God. Very true is this of Ignatius, whose\nletters breathe forth again and again the fiery faith and zeal of the\ntrue prophet, with flashes now and then of great and Christlike thoughts\nthat still shine like gems amid the dust of pious exposition and\nmistaken exegesis that even first century Christian literature shares as\na characteristic with our own. In the letter which he wrote to his\nfriend Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, one sees how intensely he felt the\nimportance of a bishop's work for the life of the Church, how great the\nneed was for gifted and holy men to fill such posts and what true help\nsuch men were able to give to the struggling communities for whom they\nlived and whom they served. Ignatius, for all his exaltation of the\nbishop's office, is full of humanity, feeling his own unworthiness and\nregarding himself as the servant of his church. As we hear him urging\nupon Polycarp to do his best to save all his flock, to put up with them\nall, even as Christ bears with [p.51] him, to love not just the good\ndisciples but rather more especially the worse, and to conquer them by\ngentleness, to stand like a rock against false teaching, to care for the\nwidows and not to overlook the slaves, we feel indeed how high the task\nof such a bishop was; and with both Ignatius and Polycarp, as with\ncountless of their less illustrious fellows, it was a task crowned by\nmartyrdom.\n\nBut if history shows us how valuable was the work done under the system\nof the catholic hierarchy to preserve a living Christianity across the\ncenturies, it also bears witness to the way in which in succeeding ages\nthe prophetic spirit re-asserted itself. A long series of heresies from\nthat of the Montanists in the second century to that of the Fraticelli\nin the fourteenth, or of the Lollards and Hussites in the fifteenth, up\nto the days of the Reformation and the Anabaptist prophets of Munster,\ngive us evidence of the way in which that spirit meets the profound need\nof humanity and proves the outcome of deep stirring of soul. But inside\nthe Church itself we shall find again that the spirit of prophecy cannot\nbe banished, just because there always was true life there. Yet the\nprophetic gift does not go along the orthodox channels of the hierarchy,\nbut is continually bursting out in new and unexpected quarters, so that\noften the authorities of the Church are in a strait whether they are\ndealing with a saint or a heretic. To those outside the Church, the\ncanon sometimes seems strange enough which [p.52] rules into one class\nSt. Theresa, into the other Madame Guyon, which, after burning\nSavonarola was almost on the point of canonising him, which deposed and\nexiled John of Parma, and then beatified him. The prophetic spirit\nsurely often found its outlet in the early ages amongst the monks of the\ndesert, witness for instance such a saint as Telemachus, who brought to\nan end the gladiatorial shows at Rome; and in later times first in the\nBenedictine and the subsequent monastic orders, and then, very notably,\nin the Franciscan brotherhood, it found freer outlets than the church of\nthe day could provide, while the lives of countless saints bear witness\nto some touches at least of the spirit of the prophet re-asserting\nitself in spite of the trammels of the organization of the church. If\nthe gift of prophecy were to be connected with a divinely ordered\nhierarchy we might naturally look for it most of all in the popes. Yet\nin so many centuries comparatively few popes have been canonised as\nsaints, and few amongst these are conspicuous as showing forth this gift\nin the way in which we see it in such a simple woman as Catherine of\nSiena, or in plain men like Giles of Perugia.\n\nIn our own day, a devout catholic like Fogazzaro has pictured for us the\nway in which a true prophet may arise within the bosom of the Church,\nonly to meet with obstacles from the authorities, and finally with\npersecution ending almost in martyrdom. Yet that book, which, in spite\nof [p.53] Papal prohibition, has found such warm support and awakened\nsuch eager interest in Catholic Italy, bears witness to the profound\nlonging (which many in England surely share) that there is within the\northodox Church for a deep spiritual ministry, which the recognised\nauthorities have not always supplied, for a revelation of new truth to\nmeet the needs of our day, for a fresh unfolding of the meaning of the\ngospel of Christ, which shall appeal once more with apostolic power to\nthe hearts of men.\n\nTwo centuries ago the early Quakers felt that they had known such an\nexperience and tried to hand it on to others. Need we wonder if it\nshould appear that the Society of Friends to-day has inherited their\ntraditions but not their spirit? For, indeed, the prophetic spirit can\nnever be inherited, or passed on from man to man by any mechanical\narrangement. It must come anew from generation to generation, often\nafter the hardest travail of soul, through fresh strivings, as the\nresult of other needs; but we can, at least, see that our ordering,\nwhether of the Church's life or our own, is such as not to hinder its\ncoming but to prepare us for it.\n\nAnd not the least of such a heritage has been a form of worship and a\nview of life which may still give not only to a little community but to\na wider world a school of the prophets.\n\nWhen we see the weak side of quietism, and mistakes of an earlier day of\nmystics (as now we [p.54] are so apt to do), let us not forget that,\namidst the quietist Quakerism of the eighteenth century, there grew up\nand flowered one of the most beautiful products not only of Quaker but\nof Christian training; to many of us to-day, John Woolman speaks as do\nfew others with the power of a true prophet. Yet too often in the past\nthe Society of Friends has been content with a succession of minor\nprophets, whose message was only to a little congregation. Without was a\nmultitude who had no priests or shepherds, and nations needing a guide.\nTo-day, if we cannot make teachers like Woolman, at least we can prepare\nthe way for their coming.\n\nProphecy is born of prayer, supported by it, not the prayer of words,\nbut that attitude of soul, of will, of which the most beautiful of our\ncollects are the momentary reflections. In this spirit then, feeling our\nneed and our fellows', let us long for more light to come into our\nlives. Let us remember that we have not just to sit down contentedly in\nthe dark and wait for God's light.\n\nIf we try to listen to the voice of the prophet teachers of the past\nwhose message still comes home to us, and to picture the thoughts of\nsome disciple of theirs to-day, might we not frame them thus?\n\n\"If we cannot scatter the clouds, we can at least clean our windows and\nopen our doors. Every faculty of our nature is God's gift and to be used\nin His service, and so we are not to think of prophecy [p.55] as coming\nwith the atrophy of the intellect; with every power of our minds we are\ncalled to serve God and seek truth, which is His revelation. To pray, '\nThy will be done ' should be, as Fogazzaro has told us, no attitude of\npassive submission, but a call to our whole nature to strive to the\nutmost for the cause of God.\n\n\"Then we must remember that the more truly we are at one with Christ,\nthe more we shall feel ourselves fundamentally united with all our\nfellows. We shall feel their wrongs and sins as ours, and their needs\ntoo, and as we come to feel this, we shall realise more and more that in\nevery act and word and thought we are not our own.\n\n\"Every evil desire overcome is a victory for our brothers, and not\nmerely for ourselves. Our lives are intertwined one with another, and\nconstantly, unseen and unknown to ourselves and each other, we influence\none another for evil or for good. The prophet is nothing else than a\ntrue priest, not to one or two, but to a multitude.\n\n\"We are all called to be priests, and, if God calls us to be prophets,\nin learning to be truly priests, we shall unconsciously be learning too\nin the prophets' school.\n\n\"The priest must have a two-fold vision, of the truth above him and of\nthe brother beside him who has need of the truth. The more he can see of\neither, the more he can be brought into communication with his fellows,\nand with the truth, the more priestly will his service be. [p.56] \"Let\nus be faithful in word and deed to the highest that we know, and higher\nthings shall be revealed unto us. Let us be patient with the worst and\nthose who naturally repel us. Far more repulsive has been the evil in\nour own thoughts in the eyes of the holy angels. Let us not be uplifted\nbecause others have been helped through us; Truth is not ours, but God's.\n\n\"Let us not be discouraged if our work seem fruitless; never despair of\nthe truth. Have faith in the truth that has been revealed to you, for\nsome day others too shall see it.\n\n\"Have faith in the Truth that is yet unknown; others perhaps have\nalready caught some glimpse of it.\n\n\"Blessed is the man in whose heart there is built an altar with the\ninscription written: ' To the unknown Truth '; of such men are prophets\nmade.\n\n\"Truth is beautiful in the mouth of a friend, but most divine when it is\nseen in the heart of an opponent. The devil had delight to seek for\nfaults in Job; let us seek rather to see, with Christ, the good in the\nheart of the publican.\"\n\nThose of us who are striving after this ideal should be the greatest of\nsacerdotalists; our faith and worship are built up upon belief in the\nessential priesthood of every human soul. Let us not forget then, that\nif all men have some vision of God, all may teach us something of Him.\nAnd since heavenly truth comes to no man naked, but clad in changing\nrobes, let us strive in our [p.57] search for truth, alike in speaking\nand in listening, to remember that the garment of words changes and may\nmean one thing to us and another to our fellows. Let us get beneath\nwords and forms to the life-giving spirit, and as we are to be the\ngreatest sacerdotalists let us be the most thorough- going of ritualists\ntoo, to whom there are symbols and lessons of the Divine Life, not only\nin the beautiful liturgies of the altar, but in all the mysteries of\nnature and the sacraments with which life is full.\n\nFor surely there are not merely two or seven sacraments, but seventy\ntimes seven, for him whose heart seeks ever fellowship with his brothers\nand with the Father above him, who would be loved in them, and served by\ntheir service. The whole world is God's and full of His light; our lives\nare His and they are our fellows. And since in every heart of man is\nsome well through which the God-given waters of life may flow, we may go\nforth in faith to our work; as we serve our neighbours and search for\ntruth, in the spirit of followers of Christ Jesus, seeking that our own\nwells may be made wider and deeper, and that their springs may be shared\nmore fully by others, God will make priests of all of us, and, if He\nwill it, prophets too. [p.58]\n\n\n    CHAPTER IV. SACRAMENTS OF LIFE.\n\n\"THE Finger of God,\" wrote once Sir Thomas Browne, \"hath left an\ninscription upon all His works.\" We have little skill to read that\nwondrous message, but from the very dawn of humanity men have tried to\ntrace the writing, have sought to spell out the words, and as they came\nto perceive something of those spiritual forces that are at work in the\nworld, and to look beneath the surface of things to that which lies\ndeeper, they too have endeavoured to embody in outward forms for\nthemselves and for others the truths which they would apprehend.\n\nThe course of the ages changes the meaning of even the simplest words\nwhich we use, for words, like men, are mortal; and so it has come about\nthat the thought which rises in our minds as we speak of a sacrament is\nnot that which came to those who used the word long ago.\n\nIn the ancient days a sacrament was simply a holy thing, something\nconsecrated and set apart; in very early times it was especially a sort\nof judicial pledge deposited by the parties in a law [p.59] suit; then\nit came to mean the solemn oath of a soldier, pledging his loyalty to\nhis commander on entering upon his military service. It was used by\nearly Christian Latin writers to render the thought of the Greek\nmystery, /\u03bc\u03c5\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd/, a word which we have failed to translate into\nEnglish, as so often we must fail in any translation from one tongue to\nanother to render thought for thought.\n\nWe think nowadays of a mystery as being something hidden, but to the\nGreek it was rather a revelation; an unfolding through symbol of that\nwhich could not be wholly expressed in any words. The mystery remained a\nsecret to him who was without, to the uninitiate; but the initiate\nunderstood its meaning.\n\nIn the most famous mysteries of Greece, those which were celebrated at\nEleusis, it would seem that along with the idea of revelation of truth\nwent also the sense of upbuilding of the inward life, the purification\nof the soul and the assimilation of the Divine things imparted beneath\nthe symbol. For revelation, the unveiling of truth, is no one-sided act;\nit involves response in the mind that receives; if the truth is\napprehended, it must in part at least, be also assimilated. And so every\nmystery is something more than the unfolding of a hidden reality; it\nalso implies the imparting of new life.[7] [p.60 ]\n\nIn the earlier Christian literature sacraments still bear this wide\nmeaning. Tertullian often uses the word thus. In one passage he speaks\nof a woman known to him who was accustomed to go into ecstasies during\nthe weekly service of the Church; \"she converses with angels, sometimes\neven with the Lord, and both sees and hears sacraments\" [8] He\nspeaks of \"the sacrament of allegory,\"[9] \"sacraments of\nmetaphors,\" [10] in both cases alluding to Old Testament\ntypes, and again, he explains the wood by which Moses made the waters of\nMara sweet (Exodus xv.), as a sacrament symbolizing the cross [11] <#_edn11>\n\nAccording to Prudentius, the early Christian poet, the Evangelist tells\nus that Christ gave these [p.61] commands to His disciples: \"Seek not\ncarefully for words when ye shall have to descant of my sacrament,\" [12]\n\"my Sacrament,\" being evidently here equivalent to \"the Gospel.\"\n\nBut, as time passed by, the word sacrament became more and more used for\ncertain mysteries of the Church alone, although far down into the middle\nages even in this sense the word had a wider use than that of the seven\nsacraments of the Council of Trent.\n\nThus in 393 A.D. the synod of Hippo made a decree as to the use of the\nsacrament of salt at Easter by the catechumens, and in later times the\nringing of bells and the use of the sign of the cross were regarded as\nsacraments. By the time of Augustine, however, the word sacrament was\nfrequently used in its narrower signification, and already emphasis is\nlaid on the saving power of the sacrament rather than on its\nsignificance as a revelation. Yet Augustine, though holding that the\nsacrament of baptism was necessary to salvation, once wrote thus: \"For\nwhat else are each of the bodily sacraments, but, so to speak, certain\nvisible words; most holy words it is true, but yet mutable and temporal\nones?\" [13] <#_edn13>\n\nIt is this wider sense of the word which we must [p.62 ]be careful not\nto lose, the use in which a sacrament means the unfolding and imparting\nof the spiritual and eternal through that which we see and hear and feel.\n\nBecause in times past the Church has tended to narrow the use of the\nword, and, by confining the Divine operations to certain channels, to\nmisread the great sacrament of life, so lessening the mystery of the\nworld, there is all the more reason that we should not rest content with\nseeing how inadequate such views have proved. It is true that over the\ndoctrine of sacraments men have fought and wrangled, forgetting the name\nby which they were called. But it is true, too, that to countless souls\nit has seemed that through the sacraments the Church has offered them\nhelp which has come as in no other way to their lives. And surely this\nhas not been all delusion. The error of the sacramentalist in the past\nhas often rather been that he has confined the Divine presence and the\nDivine working to certain fixed channels and unchanging visible signs.\nThose of us who hold that these good men have narrowed down the freedom\nof the inner life need to meet them not by denying the Divine presence\nwhere they see it, but by trying to see and to realize that presence\nourselves more fully throughout all our lives. We are called to the\nworship and the knowledge of the transcendent and immanent God, who is\nhere in the midst of our lives, in the midst of His world and His works,\nyet is far more than all these. [p.63] When the stern old Tertullian\nlooked out upon the pagan world around him and noted in its religious\nrites strange mimicry and rivalry of the Christian mysteries, he could\nperceive no good in what he saw. In the worship of Mithras he found a\nbaptism for the remission of sins, and a sign made on the forehead of\nthe soldier in this pagan army of salvation; a crown purchased by the\nsword, and the ritual offering of bread. But all this, like the ancient\nRoman rites of Numa, or the mysteries of Eleusis and of Samothrace,\nseemed to him but the work of the Evil One. It was the devil's part, he\nwrote, to invert the truth and make of it his own counterparts, as he\nseemed to do in much of the ritual of the heathen temple.[14] <#_edn14>\n\nIn like manner, in more modern times the early missionaries in the far\neast learned with amazement of the way in which, in the mountains of\nThibet, the devil had made his imitation of the ceremonies and offices\nof the Catholic Church, and wondered as they heard of the Buddhist\nmonasteries with their abbots and hierarchy of clergy, and the\ncelebration there of mysterious offices strangely resembling their own\nmass, to the sound of bells and amid the smoke of incense.\n\nIn our own day an even wider area opens before [p.64 ]the historian's\nvision, and across five continents men trace, under various forms, rites\nwhose origin seems the same. It is not now the devil who is credited\nwith inspiring these myriad devices, but perhaps not a few of the\nstudents who return with Dr. Frazer from the survey of this vast field\nare inclined to feel that they have reduced all alike to one origin, in\nprimitive savage superstition at work in the presence of life, birth and\ndeath. But if Tertullian and his school lack charity in their judgment\non the sacraments of the heathen, there is surely danger too that our\nmodern men of science may lead us to believe that in tracing a custom to\nits primitive origin they have found its cause or explained its nature.\nWe can under- stand a thing best, not merely by knowing its beginning,\nbut by also viewing it in its full development, judged not only by what\nit is at its lowest, or when it is most degraded, but at its highest and\nbest.\n\nThe world-wide use points surely to a world-wide need, expressing itself\nin different ways, but in essentials the same. Unconsciously, indeed, in\nall our lives we make use of sacraments whenever we apprehend the\ninvisible and the higher through the medium of the visible and lower.\nAnd, in our very thoughts, metaphors and symbols are nothing else than\nsacraments expressing truth in pictorial form. Even when men\ndeliberately attempt to explain all life on a basis of atheistic\nmaterialism they still feel the need of what might [p.65] truly be\ncalled a kind of sacrament. It is very significant from this point of\nview to find that some French secularists have found it desirable to\npublish a ritual of civil ceremonies, [15] in which model\nliturgies are provided for a secular baptism, a secular confirmation\nservice, as well as secular marriage and burial services. A conscious\nrecognition of this same need led Auguste Comte and his Positivist\nfollowers to devise an elaborate ritual which might make their worship\nof Humanity more real.\n\nThe Society of Friends itself, which is popularly supposed to represent\na protest against all forms of sacraments, can illustrate in its history\nthe value of the true sacrament, and the danger there is of doing\nworship to the form of the sacrament, rather than to the life which\nmakes it of worth.\n\nNo other Christian community has proved so strikingly the value in\nworship of the beautiful sacrament of silence, that universal liturgy in\nwhich all nations can unite; where ignorant and learned men come\ntogether on a like basis. Yet the very fact that in speaking of this we\nneed to emphasize the worth of \"Living silence,\" shows that too often,\neven here, men have but honoured a dead silence, making an idol of the\nsacrament which was only a means to an end, not an end in itself.\n\nWe may see even more clearly how easy it is for the form to become a\nbondage in the history of [p.66] another strange Quaker sacrament, that\nof the \"Plain dress\" of the middle nineteenth century. There is no need\nto tell how, in the case of this custom, the protest against changing\nfashions became itself the most tyrannous of fashions. What is\nespecially interesting to us now, is to note that the dress which was an\noutward sign of inward grace became to be considered as, in a sense,\nholy itself. A young man or woman would wear the ordinary dress of the\nday, and suddenly some time of decision would come, a crisis in the\ninner life, and perfectly naturally the change would be marked by the\nadoption in the plain dress of the older generation. And it even became\ncustomary to associate the length of the hat brim with the holiness of\nthe wearer's life; the truer to Quaker principles he was, the longer was\nthe brim. It has been said that you may find in a journal written\nseventy years ago such an entry as this: \"I think I can honestly, yet in\nall humility, say that in the past year there has been a growth in\ngrace, and I have ventured to add a quarter of an inch to the brim of my\nhat.\" We smile; yet for some of us at least that ancient costume is so\nredolent of beautiful memories that we can scarce bear to laugh at its\nvagaries; we know too well the sacramental efficacy of the old Friend's\nbonnet, which forever recalls the goodness and love of the face beneath it.\n\nIt is strange that in the ancient Church of Rome men should have come to\nthink in much the same [p.67] way of the peculiar habits of the\nreligious orders, regarding the monk's dress itself as something sacred,\nwhich an unworthy man dishonoured, and which actually helped its wearer\nto be holier in his life just as the old Quaker dress was felt by many\nto help them to be more consistent in all their ways with the ideal\nwhich they strove to realize. So strong was this feeling that men who\nwere not members of an Order sometimes obtained as a privilege to wear\nfor a time the cord, to die in the habit, or even to be buried in it,\nthe dress itself being felt to be sacramental.\n\nIf these minor sacraments came to be so misunderstood, how natural it is\nthat similar misunderstandings should arise as to sacraments in common\nuse throughout the whole Church, and associated with the very deepest\ntruths of the inner life. Yet if we go back to their origin we shall see\nthat the two chief sacraments of the Church were most simple acts\nexpressing in visible language the life of the spirit, acts perfectly\nnatural and full of significance to those who first took part in them,\nbut which in later days have too often lost their meaning because the\nmere form was held to have some magical efficacy in itself.\n\nTo understand these sacraments aright do we not need to enter into the\nspirit of the Teacher in whose name they are celebrated, and who is\nbelieved to have instituted them? As we read the evangelists' record of\nthe life and words of Jesus, [p.68] we must surely feel that to him all\nlife was a sacrament, a continual unfolding of the Divine through the\nvisible world and through human life. In his eyes the sunshine falling\nalike upon good and evil men is a constant revelation of the Divine\nlove, compassing just and unjust, overcoming evil with good. The\nbeautiful flowers of the field, blooming for a moment and then\ndestroyed, bring to him no thoughts of gloom, as they did to the Greek\npoet, but the certainty that the Power which gives such loveliness to\nthe creatures of an hour will provide for His higher creation too. The\nsparrows chirruping under the eaves, humblest of birds, fill him with a\nsense of the Father's care for these, and much more for man. As Christ\nwalks across the fields, he sees messages for men in all the life about\nhim: the parable of the seed, summing up the whole mystery of our nature\nin its life and growth; the sower at his work, the fishermen at their\ntask, all are parables for him. And so it is with the relationships of\nour human life, which Christ takes up in his teaching and makes\nsacramental. Because he is in unbroken communion with the Father unseen,\nhe constantly brings all the little things of daily life into\nrelationship with Him.\n\nChrist found the religious folk of his day intent on fulfilling certain\nduties; eager to guard the letter of the scriptures, the sacredness of\nthe sabbath, and to fulfil the various acts which the law prescribed. He\ndid not destroy the sacredness of [p.69] the one day by his treatment of\nthe sabbath, but he raised the other days to its level: he did not\nsecularize life by his attitude to the law, but rather recognised all\nlife as holy. Religion was no longer to be something confined to certain\nacts and to special offices and places, but rather the attitude of the\nsoul toward God and one's fellows, a spirit pervading the whole life and\nnot concerned merely with the externals of duty or with certain special\nseasons of prayer.\n\nWas it not natural, and even necessary, that One who looked thus upon\nthe world, seeing every- thing in relation to God as the Author and the\nend of life, should make of the commonest acts a means to the Source of\nall strength? The water of purification, without which men could not\nlive a clean and healthy life, the daily bread without which they could\nnot live at all, the wine which stood for the inspiring fellowship which\nmakes life worth living, were symbols ready to hand and full of\nspiritual meaning.\n\nWe have a perfect instance, in the account given in the fourth Gospel of\nthe washing of the disciples' feet, of the true nature of the sacrament,\nand we are able perhaps to see it more clearly because the actual form\nof this sacrament has never been in general use in the Church, and men\nhave almost ceased to think of it as a sacrament at all. \"Except I wash\nthee thou hast no part in me,\" the Master says to Peter; so necessary\nwas the sacrament. Yet the mere form meant nothing, when the thought\n[p.70] and life beneath it was not entered into, for Judas too,\nsubmitted to the ordinance, and went out to betray his Lord. We are told\nhow, when Christ had ended this visible parable, the disciples were\nbidden even so to wash each other's feet. Often possibly in after years\none or another may have done a like act for his friend, and recalled the\nMaster's words in doing it. But this sacrament never became fixed into a\nform, and so even now we can clearly see its meaning. Indeed, had it\nbecome a custom of the Church, Christians would have needed to have been\nvery simple and humble if the ordinance were not to lose its\nsignificance. In the few instances where the rite of feet-washing is\nstill observed, we see how far removed to-day the ceremony may be from\nthe thought which once inspired it. The selected poor, who have first\nbeen carefully washed before the ceremony, are marshalled in stately\norder, attendant dignitaries are ready at hand with ewers of scented\nwater and basins of precious metal; and so, yearly, do Pope and Emperor\ncommemorate the scene in the upper chamber where in very different wise\none whose kingdom was not of this world taught his followers the way\nthey should serve him by serving one another.\n\nThe sacrament of baptism would seem to be one which comes naturally to\nthe Eastern peoples: it has been in use for ages among the Hindus of\nIndia, and it was apparently in general vogue in Palestine in Christ's\ntime. It would appear [p.71] to have been not so familiar to the Western\nworld, for the evangelist Mark has to explain to his Gentile reader how\nit was the custom of the Pharisees to baptize pots and vessels, and even\nbeds. Apparently, even in that day the symbol of purification had come\nto have a magical significance. The washing or purification as a symbol\nof initiation is common to many religions, and it was a natural\npictorial language for the prophet John the Baptist to employ, to\nexpress the change of life that was to follow the repentance which he\npreached. Christ's disciples had, many of them, first been followers of\nJohn, and would readily continue to use this sign in their ministry. But\nthough Baptism was to the early Church the natural expression of\nentrance into the new life of Christianity (as we see in the case of\nPhilip and the Ethiopian eunuch), yet it is hard to imagine that if it\nwere held to possess in itself the importance which in later time was\nattached to it, the Apostle Paul would actually rejoice in the fact that\nhe had hardly baptized any converts at all himself. [16] <#_edn16>\nAlready, however, the ceremony had a meaning deeper than the simple act\nof purification severing the old life from the new, which was probably\nthat of the first baptisms of the disciples during the lifetime of\nChrist. We gather from Paul's words that in baptism the believer made\nreal to himself, and to those about him, his [p.72] going down with\nChrist into the waters of death and his rising again with him into a new\nlife, by the power of the resurrection. Some inherent virtue was soon\nthought to attach to the outward act itself, or else one can scarcely\nexplain the origin of that strange custom of baptism for the dead,\nalluded to in the same epistle. [17] <#_edn17>\n\nThis thought of the inherent worth of baptism continued to grow until by\nthe beginning of the fifth century it became generally held that without\nit salvation was impossible. The Christian con- science, however,\ndiscovered a way to remove what would have been the hardest application\nof such a belief by what was spoken of as the baptism of blood. If an\nunbaptized convert was martyred for the name of Christ (as often might\nhappen), the martyr's death was held to be itself a baptism, and this\nidea was extended to what was called the baptism of desire, or the\nbaptism of faith, whenever death occurred before it was possible for a\nconvert to be baptized. The classical instance of this, discussed by St.\nAugustine and frequently cited by subsequent writers, is that of the\npenitent thief upon the cross, [18] And Tertullian, who called\nbaptism the \"seal of faith,\" goes so far as to say \"we do not receive\nthe washing of purification [p.73] in order to cease from sinning, since\nwe had already been washed in our hearts.\" [19] The seal of\nbaptism was in his view the legal and visible completion of the act, not\nthe act itself. Still, he holds baptism to be the needful \"vesture of\nfaith,\" as he calls it in another passage, and accordingly discusses the\ndifficulty raised by some heretics of his own time, that Paul being the\nonly baptized apostle, the other apostles could none of them be saved;\nthough he does not feel it needful to adopt the explanation of certain\northodox ritualists of his day, who held, he tells us, that the apostles\nwere possibly baptized on the occasion when the waves beat in upon them\nin the little ship on the sea of Galilee.\n\nIt was not to be wondered at that, with such a view of baptism current\nin the Church, the Catholic missionaries of the sixteenth and\nseventeenth centuries should have laid stress rather on the numbers whom\nthey could baptize than any other result. It is indeed at once pathetic\nand amusing to turn over the leaves of the letters from the missions\nwhich the good Jesuit fathers wrote two centuries and more ago,\ndescribing the progress of their work among the American Indians. You\nmay read there the words of a missionary spending laborious days amid\nall manner of hardships, baptizing the sick and aged when very near to\ndeath and therefore removed from the danger of possible relapse into\ninfidelity, and especially [p.74] rejoicing in the number of souls won\nby the baptism of dying infants, who could not possibly fall away from\ngrace.\n\nTo such almost ludicrous notions do men come through materialising the\npictorial language of the primitive sacrament, and imagining that its\nvisible words have magical efficacy in themselves. Yet the thought of\nthe scene in the upper room on the night of the last supper makes us\nfeel how much that visible language might mean in its first simplicity.\n\nAs simple and as natural was that other sacrament, when Christ took the\nbread from the supper table, and the cup of fellowship, and gave them to\nthose friends of his as his body and very life, which he was giving for\nthem and for their fellows. What could be more fitting than that they\nshould henceforth remember this farewell supper, this supreme gift of\nhimself, when their master was taken from their sight, whenever they\npartook again of the Passover, nay, whenever they met together as\ndisciples to share in a common meal in the name of him they loved? The\nmore fully they lived in his spirit the more simply would each meal they\ntook with one another be hallowed by the thought of his love and his\npresence.\n\nThus did the disciples in the early days take together the Eucharist\nmeal from house to house in Jerusalem: and so, in the midst of the\nstorm, Paul took it, before wondering fellow-passengers and crew,\nmingling the prayer of joyful thanks-[p.75]giving with the remembrance\nof the Lord for whose name he was suffering hardship.\n\nAlready in the time of Paul the communion service was beginning to lose\nits first simple spontaneity, as we may note in his directions to the\nChurch at Corinth, but for long afterwards the Eucharist was in a much\nwider sense sacramental, than when its meaning was defined and\nimprisoned in the formulae of theologians. How full of beauty must the\neucharist have been in those little churches of Asia Minor, [20]\nfor which perhaps the Didache, \"The Teaching of the Twelve\nApostles,\" was written, towards the beginning of the second century. The\neucharist prayer of the Didache is a true prayer of thanks: \"We thank\nThee, our Father, for the life and knowledge which Thou didst make known\nto us through Thy servant Jesus; Unto Thee the glory evermore !\" \"For as\nthis broken piece of bread was scattered over the mountains and brought\ntogether and became one, so may Thy church be brought together from the\nends of the earth into Thy Kingdom, for Thine is the glory and the power\nthrough Christ Jesus evermore.\"\n\nThus was the eucharist meal to early Christians a symbol of the unity of\nthe Church, and a means of drawing them nearer in thought to each other.\n[p.76]\n\nIt is sad to think that what in those days was a bond of union should\nhave become in later times a source of bitter contention and\nmisunderstanding; may we not resolve that for our part, however we may\ndiffer from each other, or from the majority of Christians, in our views\nabout this observance, we will not let this hinder us from realizing\nthat others may be helped by means which do not aid us, and that it is\ninfinitely better to draw near to God through outward forms than to be\nwithout them and not to draw near to Him: that what we need is to\nrealize and to claim the liberty by which a hundred forms may become\nsacramental, and not to deny the reality of the life which may underlie\nthe fixed forms which others use.\n\nLuther once said that God might have made a sacrament of a bit of stick,\nhad He chosen; Pusey repeated the saying to a friend with a shudder,\ntelling him that it showed an irreverent mind. [21] Yet surely\nLuther's words convey the very key to our comprehending the truth of the\nReal Presence, which may be revealed without outward form, or under\ninnumerable forms, just because God is so much nearer than we think,\never at work in His world, still disclosing Himself to those who seek\nwith humble heart, even though they call Him not by His name. What we\nneed above all is the spirit which will fill our lives with such\nsacraments, revelations of God to us and to our fellows. Sometimes we\nmay be helped by an [p.77] ancient usage of the Church, at others by\nsome new symbol: what matter the shape of the chalice if the wine be there?\n\nJohn Henry Newman, in his early Protestant days, was wont to make use of\nthe sign of the cross and to find it helpful. It is a sacrament which\nloses its meaning the moment one thinks of it as having any magical\neffect in itself, but if it be used to remind oneself of that which it\nstands for, as the symbol of the perfect deed of self-sacrifice, it may\nwell help many learners in the school of Christ.\n\nIn like manner to-day, the wearing of a badge of membership in some\nsociety, or adult school (as twenty years ago a piece of blue ribbon),\nmay doubtless prove an effectual sacrament to many men, aiding them to\nbe faithful to a resolution made, as well as showing forth their belief\nto others. The sign is in itself useless, yet may mean much to the men\nwho make it their symbol of comradeship.\n\nThe more worth living our lives prove, the fuller they will be of true\nsacraments, in little things and in great. The immense sacrament of\nnature is ever about us, and our human intercourse is made up, in all\nthat makes it of worth, of count- less lesser sacraments. What meaning\nthere may be in a simple handshake, and how much help and strength it\nmay pass on to another! The mere physical act is as nothing in itself,\nyet it may avail to alter a whole life. Nevertheless, [p.78] we must see\neven here how easily mere custom may diminish or destroy the use of such\na thing. In the studied greeting of formal civility the sacramental\ncharacter disappears. Or worse still, that which was intended to be a\nmedium of friendship becomes a means of undoing friendship's work. For\nso long as wrong exists in our lives we must beware of the sacraments of\nevil by which the ties which bind us to each other and to the world\nabout us become the Devil's bonds instead of God's leading-strings.\n\nThe act, or the thing which forms the sacrament, may be in itself used\neither for good or ill. To one man even it may be good, while to another\nit may be a means of harm. The greater need, therefore, have we neither\nto judge our neighbour, nor ourselves to do lightly things which may be\na means of good for him, but for us a sacrament of ill.\n\nTo take a single instance: Wandering in his father's library, a boy\ncomes upon a book which he begins to read; and suddenly the conviction\ncomes to him that he ought not to go on. The book is full of interest;\nperhaps in later years he may return to it and find its thoughts most\nhelpful. And yet it may be that this book, which at a later time might\nprove a sacrament of good, may be for him now nothing but a sacrament of\nevil, since his mind is not ready to understand its teaching.\n\nIn the world without us there are some things so constantly associated\nwith thoughts of goodness [p.79] and beauty that they seem almost\nnaturally God's sacraments. Such are the flowers, which constantly call\nto our minds thoughts of joy and kindness; the sunlight, which cheers\nand invigorates; and drives away the disease that is the symbol of\nwrongdoing; the light, whose essence is so pure that it has become an\nimage of the Divine nature. These are among nature's sacraments, and in\nthe life of man we have, above all, the sacrament of the family, which\nat its best is an image of the love of the All-highest, and a foretaste\nof His Kingdom among men, of the city which is to be, in which all are\nmembers of one another, living to serve each other.\n\nIt may comfort us to think that the devil's sacraments are not so\nall-pervading; for night, which we think of as the cloak of evil, may\nitself be to the devout soul a symbol of the mysterious peace of God.\nOne thinks of those wonderful lines of Vaughan:\n\n/Dear Night! the world's defeat;/\n\n/The stop to busy fools; care's check and curb;/\n\n/The day of spirits; my soul's calm retreat/\n\n/Which none disturb!/\n\n/Christ's progress, and His prayer-time;/\n\n/The hours to which high Heaven doth climb./\n\n/God's silent, searching flight;/\n\n/When my Lord's head is fill'd with dew, and all/\n\n/His locks are wet with the clear drops of night;/\n\n/His still, soft call;/\n\n/His knocking time; the soul's dumb watch,/\n\n/When spirits their fair kindred catch. [p.80]/\n\n/Were all my loud, evil days/\n\n/Calm and unhaunted, as is thy dark tent,/\n\n/Whose peace but by some angel's wing or voice/\n\n/Is seldom rent;/\n\n/Then I in Heaven all the long year/\n\n/Would keep, and never wander here./\n\n/* * * */\n\n/There is in God \u2014 some say \u2014/\n\n/A deep, but dazzling darkness; as men here/\n\n/Say it is late and dusky, because they/\n\n/See not all clear./\n\n/O for that Night ! Where I in Him/\n\n/Might live invisible and dim!/\n\nor we may remember the \"Hymns to Night\" of Novalis, and that experience\nknown to so many saints, which St. John of the Cross speaks of as \"the\nobscure night of the soul,\" the darkness which we needs must traverse\nbefore we come to know the greater light beyond. The stern angel of pain\nseems to many a fiend; but some have found him to be a friend at the\nlast, and certainly there is something in the heart of sorrow that no\nother experience brings to us, unless it be great joy, and as we feel\nit, we seem to understand that the spirit of joy and the spirit of\nsorrow are angels near akin.\n\nIn the world that man has made there is one thing above all others\nthrough which the influences of evil seem to work, the devil's sacrament\nof money. When one thinks of the hatreds and lusts springing to birth\naround it, and the curse it so often seems to bring alike to \"him that\ngives and him that takes,\" when one sees wealth, [p.81] remorseless in\nits pride of power, worshipped and cringed to by its recipients and its\ncourtiers, it is easy to understand how a simple Christlike man like St.\nFrancis would have no dealings with money, and shunned to touch it as we\nmight some plague-infected garment. And yet how often has this hateful\nthing been redeemed from its base use to be the minister of right. Even\nmoney is not hopelessly lost for good. The sacramental efficacy of the\nwidow's mite has not ceased through all the centuries since she cast it,\nin her humility, into God's treasury. The sand hides the gold of\nPharaoh, and the imperial treasures of Augustus are vanished and\nforgotten, but that poor woman's gift still goes on: she gave to God, to\nthe best and highest that she knew, and in giving, little thought that\nthrough the word of the Master of Masters, her tiny coin could become\nfor ever a sacrament to humanity.\n\nSo may a little thing and a base thing be made a symbol of good; most of\nall then should we find a channel of revelation in the highest thing we\nknow; not only in the sacrament of nature, but in the sacrament of man.\n\nSurely to us the most wonderful thing in life is personality, and it is\nhuman personality which may be the highest sacrament of good, or the\nmost terrible sacrament of ill. Our deeds are often at their best poor\nclumsy acts that stray in the dark; our thoughts are all imperfect, and\nour words fail to express them fully. But in spite of all [p.82] this\nfailure, soul acts upon soul, we know not how, and the influence of one\nlife upon another goes out continually like the myriad rays of a lamp.\nSilently men are changed and transformed by this influence. And there is\nno man but is doing his part for good or ill in this transforming work,\nwhatever he may be, wherever he may go. Is it not thus that God's\nself-revelation in Christ becomes real to the Christian? God speaks to\nus in Jesus through human personality. We draw near to him as a man, we\nsee his life and listen to his words, and as we gaze and listen, we feel\nthat God has taken hold of us.\n\nWe are very near now to the greatest of sacraments. Did not the apostle\nspeak of the union of the Church with Christ as \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1 \u03bc\u03c5\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03c5, /magnum\nsacramentum/? The follower must bear, in some measure, in his life, the\nlikeness of his master; the nearer we draw to him, the more his presence\nwill mould our lives with the impress of his character.\n\nIn the ideal marriage, even as we know it realised sometimes now,\nhusband and wife live in such close communion, so share their thoughts,\nand feelings, so enter into each other's lives, that each character,\nreacting on the other, grows ever more like to it. May not this thought\nhelp us to understand something of what is meant by Christ's union with\nhis Church? The Church is humanity in its ideal form, humanity as a\nwhole striving after its true goal, and the human race comes to [p.83]\nunderstand and realize its aim by union with Christ, thus gradually\ngrowing to be more like him and to share his nature. The end and the\nmeans to it are no mere rapture of holy emotion, no selfish joy of idle\ncontemplation. The relation- ship is much deeper; it must affect our\nwhole character. It is not a rush of sentiment but a union of will.\n\nAfter years of discipleship, and when he had gone through many things\nthat he might draw nearer to the spirit of Christ, there came to St.\nFrancis that wonderful crowning vision of the Saviour crucified, and\namidst the joy of the vision there was pain. From that hour to the day\nof his death, the record tells us, did Francis bear in secret upon his\nbody the marks of the passion. It does not matter how his frail frame\ncame to respond to the thoughts that so dominated his mind: the\nimportant thing for us is not the accidental consequence to the body,\nbut the attitude of mind and spirit, the union of will with a Christ\nsuffering for humanity, bearing the sins of the world. He who has come\nto be made thus, in the humblest way, the comrade of Christ, must be the\ncomrade too of all his fellow-men. Church and individual alike must show\nin character and life the meaning of this fellowship \u2014 fellowship in joy\nand in sorrow, too, willingness to learn, to give and to serve. Sharing\nthe burdens of rich and poor, feeling the bonds that bind their lives,\naccepting ourselves responsibility and blame [p.84] for all ignorance\nand failure and wrongdoing, we may realize that the spirit of Christ is\nstill at work in the world, that closer than our thoughts is the\ninfinite love, and beneath our weakness the infinite strength of the\nFather's arms.\n\n\n    CHAPTER V: SOME OF NATURE'S SACRAMENTS\n\nTHE life of words is like in some ways to the life of men; the soul\nchanges within them, though the form remains the same. Yet while\nlanguage is still living it may regain something of its old power\nbeneath the poet's healing fingers, and now and again a master of words\nwill recall for us some dying form of speech. A writer of power is\nneeded, surely to win us back the older and wiser use of the word\nsacrament as a spiritual symbol, the revelation of the unseen through\nthe visible, the unfolding of the unknown through the known. \"The image\nof the world,\" wrote Bacon, [22] \"is a message of the Divine\nwisdom and power\"; to many a mystic it has been more even than this, and\nnature has been full of sacraments bringing life from things not seen.\n\nThe story is told of the old Calabrian Abbot, Joachim da Fiore, that as\nhe was saying vespers in some little church among the mountains, the\nglory of the setting sun caught his eye through the open [p.86 ] door of\nthe nave. Suddenly realizing how much more beautiful was the great\ntemple of the sunlit sky than the painted stone walls of his little\nbuilding made with hands, he led his congregation out into the open air,\nand with nature's ritual around them they went on praying, gazing upon\nthe picture of that evening landscape and the wonder of the sunset\nabove. Though he was the adopted father of many admirable heretics, and\nfor long a suspect himself, Blessed Joachim did not offend thus more\nthan once, as far as we know, against the laws of ritual. But many\nanother saint must have been tempted to do as he did. It is, indeed,\neasy for us to understand how in the old days every high place had its\naltar, and how again and again in later times solitude upon a mountain\nhas seemed to give the most congenial atmosphere for prayer.\nUnconsciously, and quite apart from our beliefs, we instinctively turn\nin physical weariness, and often in other troubles, to the calm rest of\nnature. However much at times we may ponder her sterner side, and search\nin vain to explain to ourselves the mysteries of death and pain with\nwhich she confronts us constantly, it is not these things of which she\nspeaks to man, when he goes to her sad and weary, like a tired child to\nhis nurse. A feeling of quietness, beneath which lies strength, the dim\napprehension of law, inexplicable indeed, but majestic and even\nbeautiful, and above all that indefinable sense of peace which comes to\nus sometimes when we [p.87] are in the presence of that which is\nimmeasurably greater than ourselves, all this may nature bring to us,\nwhen we go to her alone with our troubles. The old stoics must have\nsometimes felt this, though to the Roman mind at least wild nature did\nnot usually possess the attractive power it has for us. One cannot but\nfeel that when Marcus Aurelius cries to the Universe \"that which is\nharmonious to thee, is to me too,\" he is conscious of something of this\nfeeling in which our petty cares and troubles sink into nothingness amid\nthe waters of the great ocean of universal life; though he arrived at\nthe sense of this rather by inward meditation than by the contemplation\nof nature without him. And whatever the philosophers may have felt, one\nhas no doubt of the poets. Propertius, alone in the Umbrian highlands by\nthe sources of the Tiber, and Catullus, listening to the ripple of the\nwaves of Garda, were able for a moment to rise above the pain and fire\nof passion into a calmer air; and yet the Roman poets have no such sense\nof the overwhelming majesty and order of nature as came to the Hebrew\nPsalmists.\n\nThe Roman had still in dim recesses of his consciousness the feelings of\nan earlier age, for which every wild wood was peopled with mysterious\npowers; nature was full of unknown agencies whose workings man could but\ndimly perceive, and the ancient rites of his religion were the charms by\nwhich he held at bay the strange potencies of evil that surrounded him.\nThe [p.88] Hebrew poet looked on nature even in her sterner aspects with\nthe eyes of faith; hailstorm and thunder, and the very sea his people\nthought of with such dread, brought revelations to him of the Divine\npower controlling all; and because of this sense of unity, the mystery\nand wonder of the starry sky seemed to his inward ear vocal with\nharmonies. In some ways there has come to us in the last two centuries\nfuller knowledge of that reign of law which formed a part of the\nreligious consciousness of the poets of ancient Israel. Science speaks\nto us of the insignificance of man beside the illimitable greatness of\nthe universe of which he is ever striving to gain some knowledge, and\ntrains us to revere the majesty of laws which he can only imperfectly\napprehend. Yet it is well known how sadly one great leader of modern\nscience regretted that in his old age he was no longer able to know the\nfeeling of the beauty and majesty of the Alpine landscape which had so\noften helped him in the past, because, as it seemed to him, the habit of\nscientific analysis had taken from him that simpler sense of the earlier\nyears, the direct consciousness of a beauty he could not explain. So\ntrue it is that the child's eyes and the childlike spirit only find the\nentrance into the Kingdom of Heaven, which is hid to the wise. One must\nnot suppose, indeed, that the closing of this one door into the unseen\nmeans that others, too, are shut, or else the lot of the city-dweller\nwould be even worse than it is. Dr. Johnson, kindliest and best [p.89]\nof townsmen, though he said that to see one green field was to see all\ngreen fields, was yet keenly sensitive to many of the lesser sacraments\nof man's social life; and those who read his prayers and meditations\nknow that the invisible realities were to him no mere object of\nintellectual belief, but the atmosphere of his inmost thought. Yet it is\na thing to be regretted that the habit of scientific research and the\nordinary course of town life do too often so mould our faculties as to\nimpede that vision which the contemplation of Nature still brings to the\nsimple heart. The student's loss has its compensations, and may even\ninvolve in it an element of the noblest sacrifice; but this cannot be\nsaid of the man whose whole life is wrapped up in the making of money\nand in the pleasures and concerns of conventional urban society. Such\nmen are robbing not only themselves and their families of the things\nwhich make life worth living, but a far wider circle; for they are\nhelping to keep in being a civilization which deprives thousands of city\nchildren of ever knowing what the sacraments of nature mean. The\nmajority of Londoners have never seen the sun rise, save over smoking\nchimneys; they have never been able to watch the full moon sailing\nacross the clear blue of a cloudless night; never known a morning filled\nwith the joyous exhilaration of sunlight only dimmed by the mist of the\nvanishing dew. Still less do such town-dwellers understand of the lonely\nsilence of the night in the [p.90] open country, in which men may feel\nthemselves back again amid the childhood of the race. True, the amber\nhaze of day in London and the flicker of the gas lamps in the streets at\nnight have a beauty of their own; but it is dearly bought if the price\nmust be, at least for the greater part of our poorer men and women, and\nfor almost all the children, so heavy a one as this. The civilization\nwhich shuts out from its gaze the vision of the stars may well grow\nblind to greater mysteries; if men will not listen to the music of the\nspheres, how should they hear the angel's song?\n\n\n    CHAPTER VI: INSTITUTIONS AND INSPIRATION\n\nONE of the strangest and sometimes perhaps one of the saddest things\nthat the student of history comes to realize must surely be that law\nwhich seems to doom every great ideal and every great movement to give\nbirth to organizations which, while created to promote it, end by\ndestroying it or diverting it to different channels. The cynics laugh at\nthe contrast between present-day Christianity, as manifested in the\ndignity of the great historic churches and the rude simplicity of the\nGalilean fishers; in a narrower field the most sympathetic of French\nhistorians has traced for us the tragic way in which the great spiritual\nforces that made the early Franciscan movement what it was, were\ntrammelled, if not extinguished, by the growth of the very society which\nthey had called into being.\n\nThe mystic laments the fall from the unrealized ideal; the statesman\nmakes rejoinder that the change is a needful one, and a necessary means\nof progress. So across the centuries contend with one another the men of\nmethod and of discipline [p.92] and the men of vision. Iscariot still\nfollows in the steps of Christ, bearing his money bags, planning his\narrangements of finance, ignoring his ideal.\n\nMost of us must sympathize with Iscariot; we have so often been in his\nplace, sometimes in spite of ourselves, perhaps. Or if we cannot\nsympathize with him, at least we must with Brother Elias, that born\nmaster of organization, the practical man who saw the beauty of the\ncharacter of St. Francis, recognised the power of his attractive nature,\nand wished to turn all to visible use, to build up around him a great\nsociety which should be a guide to kings and prelates, a divine strong-\nhold into which the beauty and the riches of the world should be\nbrought. Elias doubtless felt that St. Francis was too good for this\nworld; he himself dealt with men as men, understanding the worth of\ncompromise, seeing the strength of institutions. The Elias whom most of\nus know well enough always tends to think of an ideal merely in its\nrelation to institutions actual or possible, while the Francis, for whom\nwe look too often in vain, thinks of the institution only as at best the\nimperfect embodiment of, or the means to, the ideal, and more often as\nthe hindrance to be overcome on the way, \"my brother the ass,\" who can\nonly be guided with difficulty.\n\nIt is very easy for us to recognise in a far off time the failure of\ninstitutions to realize the ideal that inspired their origin, and we\nreadily admit, in the abstract, the need for the ideal to dominate\n[p.93] the institution and the danger of the institution running away\nwith the ideal. It is harder to see in our own lives how far we are\nallowing the machinery to take us from its object, how far that\nmachinery is out of date or out of gear, since we are in the thick of it\nall, our ears dulled by the roar of the wheels. Assuming that we admit\nthat Iscariot has his right and helpful place, how are we to find it and\nkeep him there?\n\nIt may help us to understand the danger that follows upon organization,\nif we make even a partial survey of a group of existing institutions and\ntry to trace the history of some one of them.\n\nHow great is the failure of our countless institutions intended to\npromote social welfare, we to some extent realize as we take up such a\nwork as the \"Annual Charities Register and Digest,\" of the Charity\nOrganization Society, and turn over those 700 pages describing the\nvarious societies, with all their staffs and offices at work in the city\nwhich is still the London that we know. Life appears almost to become at\ntimes to some men one long committee, but, little, after all, seems\ndone. And this failure may be seen, to some extent at least, even in\nrecent movements which were originally a protest against the narrowness\nand superficiality of earlier methods of dealing with the problems of\nmodern society. The first thought of the men who conceived the idea of\nthe university settlement was surely not to found a new institution, so\nmuch as to bring life into touch [p.94] with life, to make centres in\nwhich knowledge and experience might be collected, and from which men\nand ideas might be put at the service of all who had most need of them.\nYet, in spite of themselves, they have almost become institutions;\nindeed, some settlements have frankly made it their aim to be such, and\nas one reads reports from across the water of all that our American\nfriends are doing, one must admit that they have been most successful in\nachieving their object. If the settlement movement (as it is called) had\nnot begun as it did twenty odd years ago, perhaps these wonderful\ncentres of activity would not have come into being, or would have been\nvery different from what they are. Yet would the founders of the first\nsettlement have recognised as their spiritual descendants these men,\nunselfish as they are, whose methods are so different? Did there ever\ncome before their vision the picture of a great building raised by some\nmillionaire, maintained by like gifts, manned by a staff of salaried\nworkers, and providing at the expense of far-seeing or enlightened\nmanufacturers, healthy amusement and duly certified religious teaching\nand secular instruction to the workmen of these subscribers, as well as\ndispensing, on behalf of Dives, basketfuls of crumbs, both of plain and\nfancy bread, to Lazarus and his fellows at the door?\n\nThis is, after all, an instance of a world-wide process. We are face to\nface once again with the fact that men are constantly attempting to do\ntheir [p.95] duty by deputy; to subscribe to what they see to be a good\nwork rather than to set about to do it themselves, to give of their\nmoney rather than of their lives. It is the danger that has beset the\nchurch from almost the earliest days, that the men who should be\ninspiring and setting others to work have too often simply done their\nwork for them, or tried to do it. Doubtless the old robber baron\nreturning from some murderous fray felt his heart uplifted as, rounding\na comer of the road on the way to his castle on the hill, he came in\nsight, in the valley below, of the monastery he had founded, and thought\nof the holy lives of the monks, and of their prayers put up daily for\nhim, who had such need of them. Doubtless, too, the good monks' hearts\nwarmed towards the old freebooter who yet had so much good in him as to\nbe their founder and protector. But it was small consolation to the men\nhe robbed and put to death to know that some part at least of their\npossessions would go to Holy Church and to make possible the cloistered\nself-denial of these men of God. The baron's keep has vanished, and the\nabbey is in ruins, but is there not evidence that the same process is\ngoing on to-day? It is not always pleasant to think of the ultimate\nsource of some of the contributions which are to be found in the\nsubscription lists of churches and charities. The man who realizes this\nmay well hesitate to appeal to the wealthy for money to aid his plans,\nfor he sees the effect of such methods in making [p.96] religious and\nsocial agencies distrusted by many among the very classes which they aim\nat helping. He will rather honour the spirit in which such a social\nworker as Jane Addams of Chicago refuses to receive gifts of \"tainted\ngold,\" as she feels the conscience money of some unscrupulous men of\nbusiness to be. Yet here again he may be in danger of deceiving himself.\nHe needs, it is true, to beware of accepting, still more of asking for,\ngifts which would merely be given to promote the vanity or to further\nthe selfish interests of the giver, but can a man so easily wash his\nhands of the stain of the mammon of unrighteousness? Does he not rather\nneed to recognise that, indirectly at least, the fruits of injustice\nenter into all the money that comes to him, since selfishness plays the\npart it does in our social life, and since our lives are so bound up\nwith each other that no man can set himself apart from his fellows? Only\nlet him see that the gifts he asks for will quicken in the givers the\nsense of social responsibility and increase the desire to do and to give\nmore themselves.\n\nThe payment of subscriptions, if this principle be disregarded, becomes\na soul-destroying process, alike to him that gives and him that takes.\nThe pious Henry III. turned once at bay, after listening to the pleading\nof Friar William of Abingdon, one of the most eloquent of the early\nDominican preachers, and cried to him, \"Brother William, there was a\ntime when thou couldst speak of spiritual things; now all thou canst say\nis, [p.97] ' Give, give, give ! ' One may compare the disgust with which\na modern public schoolboy often turns from the familiar appeal of the\nclergy- man who year by year comes to the school to preach on behalf of\nthe school mission, and to carry back with him the usual collection, but\nnothing better. For the only thing worth giving or asking is life; and\nsuch a missioner too often fails to ask for it. Here surely we may find\na hint of the explanation of all successful social work, which is the\npassing on of life from life, the result of the contact of personality\nwith personality. In so far as organization promotes this and makes it\npossible does it stand justified, and only by this test.\n\nOne does not wish to undervalue the associations, the reflexes of life,\nwhich institutions so often pass on, or the wealth of a great past which\nthey keep in store for us. But death is perhaps as needful and as\ninevitable for the body corporate as for the individual; for both it is\noften true that whom the gods love die young. It is surely better to\nspend and be spent in a short life rich in ideas, than to carry on a\nlong existence by the aid of a comfortable endowment, which may prevent\nmen from realizing how far out of touch they are with the actual needs\nof those about them. It is not known whether any council of bishops has\ndecided if there be humour in Heaven, but one is inclined to think that\nthe solemn way in which men shake their heads and lament the impending\ndecease of an outworn institution must sometimes be greeted elsewhere by\na peal of celestial laughter.\n\n\n    CHAPTER VII: PRIESTS AND PONTIFFS\n\nSOME day we may hope to see among our great national museums one made to\nillustrate the religions of the world, from the rudest rites of the\nsavage to the highest developments of Buddhism, Mohammedanism, Judaism\nand Christianity. This museum of comparative religions does already\nexist to some extent in embryo in every great collection of antiquities,\nand the students of ethnology and folklore have been long at work in\npreparing materials for its catalogues. A partial glimpse of what it\nwould contain is given in such a world-wide missionary exhibition as\nthat organised in connection with the work of the London Missionary\nSociety at the Agricultural Hall in the early summer of 1908.\n\nThe survey of such a great collection cannot but be stimulating to every\nthoughtful student. Some of its visitors may see in the hideous idols of\nthe South Seas and in the pictures of the medicine man at work at his\ncraft only a further incentive to aid the spreading of their own faith,\nwhich they feel more strongly than ever to be immeasurably [p.99] raised\nabove the rites and thoughts of the savage. Others may look with sad\neyes at the long series of pictures that is spread out before them, for\nthey see everywhere only the same superstition, the primitive fears of\nunknown forces, developing with the growth of civilization into\nreligions which expand with man's own needs and conceptions,\nintermingling with his hopes and aspirations and refined by his thought\ninto the creeds and theologies of the higher faiths. Through all they\ntrace the same instincts, and feel that the savage kneeling before a\nblood-smeared stone explains to them the Nicene Creed, that the\nhierarchy of the Church has its origin in the spirit-doctors and\nfetish-men of a simpler age.\n\nYet to some at least there may come far other thoughts than these, as\nthey ponder over what they have seen. Everywhere they behold men\nstretching out their hands towards something above them, beyond them,\nstruggling with fears, oppressed by dim consciousness of wrong, hoping\nfor some way of peace. The priest himself is a witness to this innate\nneed of the soul, since his very presence speaks of man's dependence on\nthe higher than himself, while it also shows men's interdependence upon\neach other. For the priest's position is impossible, unless he is in\nsome way regarded as a means of communication between man and God, and a\ncentre of fellowship among men. With this thought in his heart a man may\nlook back, not without hope, upon the melancholy pageant of [p.100] the\ncenturies, and watch the strange part that the priest has ever played in\nit. The modern sceptic joining in the sad cry of the old Roman poet \u2014\n\"So many are the ills that superstition has had power to urge men to\" \u2014\nhas had, after all, like the rest of us, but an imperfect vision of the\nconfused drama of history. He sees priesthood as a selfish influence\nplaying upon human ignorance and baseness; he does not perceive the\nwider priesthood at work of which this is only a perversion, nor realize\nthat priesthood and prayer underlie all that is highest and best in\nhuman life. For priesthood is the highest expression of man's social\nnature, by which he enters into communion with his fellows and with God.\nIt is only because we narrow the use of the name of priest that we do\nnot honour it aright, for in its essence priesthood is not a profession,\nbut a high duty to which all are called.\n\nIf we were to try to define this true priesthood, might we not say that\na priest is one who, reaching out after the higher and better than\nhimself, helps others onward too, bringing to them something to which\nthey could not of themselves have attained, who shares his good with his\nfellows and takes upon himself their ill, making communion possible for\nthem, because he has entered into communion with them himself. But it is\nnot easy thus to summarise in a sentence a work which is in truth as\nwide as human life; wherever a man interprets [p.101] in the terms of\nhis own day the unseen and enduring realities, and helps those about him\nto view things in their true relations, he is performing a priestly\nfunction; whenever he takes up their disadvantages as his own, in\nfellowship with suffering, and shares with others willingly the result\nof their own wrong-doing, then is he doing a part of the priest's\ndivinest work.\n\nThe germ of such an ideal of priesthood may be seen in far-off days. The\nfamily priesthood of the Hebrew patriarchs, and of the early ages of\nIsrael, contains, unconsciously at least, the promise of it, and in a\nwider form it formed the subject of the noblest prophetic appeal: Israel\nwas called to be a nation of priests, revealing to other peoples the\nmessage of God.[23] It may be said, too, that the later\nhistory of the Jewish nation has shown in practice the value of the\nsimple family priesthood of the parent, in keeping alive a faith which\nfrom the destruction of the temple down into the late Middle Ages was\ncherished and maintained entirely without the help of a professional\nministry. Even when after the time of Maimonides, the rabbis began to be\npaid for the time which they took from other work to devote to the\nexposition of the Law for the benefit of others, there was still no\narbitrary division between clergy and laity. The human centre of Jewish\nreligious life is not the rabbinic ministry, but the lay priesthood of\nthe family. [p.102]\n\nIt was natural that the ideal of a universal priesthood should find\nexpression in the earliest literature of the Christian Church, reviving\nand enlarging beyond the boundaries of race the appeal of the earlier\nHebrew prophets: twice in one writing of the Apostolic Age [24]\nare Christian folk spoken of as a holy priesthood or a royal\npriest- hood, while in the vision of the Apocalypse the same ideal is\nheld up for the Church that now is and for the Church that is to be, in\nthe millennial reign upon earth of the faithful disciples of Christ.\n[25] In the Pauline epistles the disciples are not actually\ncalled priests, but both the individual Christians and the Church as a\nwhole are spoken of as Temples of the Holy Spirit, and appeal is made to\nthe Romans \"that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice unto God,\nwhich is your reasonable temple-service.\"[26] Moreover, the\nbody in such a passage does not mean so much the flesh and blood, as the\nwhole visible personality of a man; in like manner in that triumphant\npaean which seems to have been written by the apostle in the conscious-\nness of the nearness of impending martyrdom, the thought in the words \"I\nam already being poured out as a libation\" [27] is that his\nwhole personality is being poured out and offered up as [p.103] a final\npriestly act of cheerful giving: for the libation was the glad offering\nmade not merely by an official clergy, but by the head of the household\nas its family priest, or by the individual as sharing in the universal\npriesthood of humanity.\n\nPriesthood was regarded, it would seem, in the earliest days of the\nChurch as a function to which all its members were called, but even in\nthe apostolic age certain officials were appointed to fulfil particular\nduties in the Church on behalf of their fellow members. Yet several\ngenerations appear to have passed before priest and presbyter were\nregarded as fully equivalent terms.[28] As Church organization\ndeveloped, the gifts of the Spirit were conceived less and less as\nwidespread throughout all the parts of the body, and more and more as\nconfined to certain classes, while in course of time these classes\nbecame more official and professional in character. Yet if we remember\nhow repeatedly institutions tend to fetter and destroy the ideal that\nhas created them, we shall find cause to wonder not in the growth of\nclericalism in the Christian Church, but rather in the fact that all\ndown the ages of her continuous life men and women both within and\nwithout the ranks of her officials have realized, in part at least, the\nhigher ideals of true priesthood. [p.104]\n\nIt is easy for us to see the harm done by the official spirit, and the\nhypocrisy which is so often its shadow; still we must not forget that\nnoble army of men who have looked with far other eyes upon their office,\nfeeling themselves the representatives for the sake of order of the\nChurch as a whole, and realizing more or less consciously that their\nduty is not to be the delegates and deputies of the layman in\ndischarging his priestly functions for him, but to be a means to help\nhim to realize them more fully, aiding him to think more, to do more and\nto pray more for himself. Especially true is this of prayer, which the\ntrue priest must ever aid in others as well as in himself, whether the\nprayer find utterance in words, or remain unformed even into the mental\nwords of thought. For is not prayer, in this widest sense, the life\nbreath of the Church and of the individual alike? Prayer is indeed too\noften spoken of as though it implied words: whereas it may exist even\nwithout conscious thought, going on whenever the soul's hand stretches\nout after God, whenever man seeks after goodness, in every act of will\nby which he is brought into touch with that Spirit from whom all right\nthoughts, \"all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works do\nproceed.\"\n\nThe aim of conscious prayer, in its highest form, must be communion, and\na communion of will which may continue when the conscious prayer itself\nceases, underlying the work and thought of everyday life. To this\ncommunion the true priest [p.105] will ever direct his fellows, knowing\nthat as he and they come to share in it more fully they will be the\nbetter able to help those about them towards their goal. He knows too,\nby experience, that there is a law of spiritual magnetism, by which just\nas in the physical world a weak magnet is strengthened by contact with a\nstrong one, so in the spiritual world the will to do the good and to\nlive aright may be strengthened by coming into the presence of a\nstronger will, and most of all by contact with the Divine will.\n\nTo the Christian, Christ expresses in human form what this will stands\nfor, and so for daily life he is still felt to be the High Priest of\nman- kind, the touch of whose spirit polarises and renews our wills, as\nthey come into contact with his life. The one early Christian writer who\nhas developed for his readers the thought of Christ's priesthood, the\nauthor of the epistle to the Hebrews, sees in the earlier Jewish\npriesthood with which he was familiar only a somewhat imperfect type of\nhis ideal: with thoughts turned upon the pontifical acts of Christ,\nwhich he realizes to be the keystone and crown of human history, he does\nnot stay to consider how the priestly function may, in some measure,\nthough imperfectly, be shared by the humblest disciple, too. Yet this\nthought of participation in the highest priestly work of the Master\nseems to have been present with the Apostle Paul when he spoke of\n\"filling up that which is lacking of the sufferings of Christ,\" and the\nsame ancient [p.106] Catholic view which sees in the good deeds of the\nsaints the continuance of Christ's work, the endless treasure flowing\nout from his life, would lead us also to see in their sorrows and\nhardships, where these have been willingly borne for the sake of God and\nman, a continuance of the redemptive love of the Cross. The thought of\nthe High Priesthood of Christ is not lowered by the fact that\npriesthood, even in its highest mediatorial side, is to some extent\nshared, however faultily, by every good human life, but it is rather\nmade intelligible to us, because it ceases to be something wholly alien\nfrom us. The life of Christ is not utterly isolated from the rest of the\nhuman race, for it could not be this and remain human; it is rather the\nkey for the Christian to all other goodness, explaining the meaning of\nsacrifice, and the possibility of sorrow and pain being made steps by\nwhich men may be raised upwards towards God. And just as the supreme\nsacrifice of Christ cannot rightly be separated from the rest of his\nministry, but rather is understood as its consummation, concentrating\nupon Calvary the work which was the aim of all his life, so is his High\nPriesthood not something foreign and separate from the life of man, but\nthe manifestation of a principle which is at work wherever good men live\nand die. Yet the more truly his followers have become priests\nthemselves, the more have they realized how imperfect their priesthood\nis, how deep their need to find it constantly renewed by contact with\nthe [p.107] unique and perfect high-priesthood which they find in Christ.\n\nThe close vital connection between the disciples' work and that of their\nMaster is one of the thoughts most prominent in the last great discourse\nof Christ to his disciples as pictured in the Fourth Gospel, and it is\nemphasized in what commentators have called the great priestly prayer.\nThe disciples' lives are to be in close union with their Master's as the\nvine branches with the parent stem, and beneath all their deeds must\nflow his living spirit. They must be in union with each other as he is\none with the Divine Father, so making real to others the continuance of\nhis life. Their whole lives are to be one great act of priesthood\nrealizing itself through fellowship. For without fellowship priesthood\ncannot be, and Christianity could not exist. The Church is a society in\nwhich men are linked to each other and to God through Christ; there is\nno place in it for the selfishness of isolated individualism, or the\ncentring of thought upon personal salvation alone. Its members belong to\neach other in belonging to their head. The metaphors used in the\napostolic writings to describe the Church are all social; it is a body,\na building, a city, a kingdom, in which every part is in relation to\nothers, and only thus can join to make the whole. The more the children\nof the Church realize this, the more truly will they become a fellowship\nof friends, and show themselves such in daily life; theirs will be\n[p.108] no exclusive friendship, but one which overflows to all, in\nhonest sincerity, because they cannot but work for all men's good.\n\nWhen Christ went about in Galilee and told men. that the Kingdom of\nHeaven was at hand, was he mistaken? Or is the fellowship which he\nfounded not itself a part of that kingdom, the seed which is already\ngrowing and spreading throughout the whole earth? Many strange fowls,\nperhaps, we may think, have lodged in its branches already; but if the\nfellowship be strong and true they cannot do it great harm, and under\nits shelter may live not only these but a host of singing birds. The\ngreat thing that all have to remember is that members of the fellowship\nmust needs hand on to others the life that has been given to them. That\ngreat title by which the Pope is known as Vicar of Christ upon earth is\nnot an idle one: every good Christian Pope has been that to some extent,\nand so, too, has every Christian disciple, in so far as he lives in the\nMaster's spirit. For language grows old so quickly, that we forget that\nthe vicar is one who acts instead of another, in his place, just as\nvicarious suffering is suffering borne by one on behalf and instead of\nanother. But we need to explain and translate the appellation \"Vicar of\nChrist\" into daily life by means of that other noble title which shines\nlike a jewel at the head of every Papal bull and rescript \"servus\nservorum Dei,\" servant of the servants of God. The Vicar of Christ will\nshow himself such by serving his [p.109] fellow-men with his whole life,\nungrudgingly and gladly, knowing that every act and thought given to\ntheir welfare is given to God, and that the Father would have men seek\nHim not afar from human life and labour, but amidst the toil and sorrow\nof that sinful humanity for whom Christ died.\n\nWhen we seek to find how far this ideal is being carried out within the\nChristian Church, we may well be saddened by our own failure, and by the\nway in which organizations intended for the common service have come to\nbe treated as an end in themselves. Yet we must remember that in the\nancient liturgies, which seem sometimes hard for the democratic modern\nmind to under- stand, the priest does not speak or act for himself, but\nas a representative of the whole fellowship of the Church; the cries and\nprayers and strivings of long generations of human lives are joined in\nthe words of the prayers that he uses, and the beautiful ritual of the\naltar is intended to be a living picture of spiritual symbols, full of\nmeaning not only for himself, but for all who worship with him.\n\nThis view of prayer finds fitting expression in a sonnet of Hartley\nColeridge on The Liturgy, which deserves to be better known.\n\n/Oft as I hear the Apostolic voice/\n\n/Speaking to God, I blame my heart so cold,/\n\n/That with those words, so good, so pure and old,/\n\n/Cannot repent, nor hope, far less rejoice./ [p.110]\n\n/Yet am I glad, that not the vagrant choice,/\n\n/Chance child of impulse, timid or too bold,/\n\n/The volume of my heart may dare unfold/\n\n/With figured rhetoric or unmeaning noise/\n\n/Praying for all in those appointed phrases,/\n\n/Like a vast river, from a thousand fountains/\n\n/Swoll'n with the waters of the lakes and mountains,/\n\n/The pastor bears along the prayers and praises/\n\n/Of many souls in channel well defined,/\n\n/Yet leaves no drop of prayer or praise behind./\n\nWe cannot but sympathize with the poet: so powerful and attractive are\nthe ancient words that have come to us down the ages fraught with the\nmemories of man's need and spiritual striving, so unworthy often do we\nfeel the language of extempore prayer. Yet if we have only once or twice\nexperienced what unpremeditated prayer may be, when it is offered in the\ntrue priestly spirit, in deep sympathy with the needs and longings of\nthose present, diverse though they be, and in close harmony with the\npeculiar demands of the time and place, we know how such prayer can, as\nnothing else, gather up our hidden desires and bring our whole souls\nwith it into the sense of communion with the source of the strength and\nhelp that we need, towards which our arms stretch out as we listen, and\nare not stretched in vain.\n\nIt is easy for us to see how often priesthood in worship has come short\nof its ideal; still sadder surely has been our failure to make real the\npriest- hood of daily life. A family priesthood of the simplest kind has\nbeen for centuries characteristic of Hebrew religious life, and this\nhousehold priest- [p.111] hood of the father, or of both father and\nmother, is a very real thing in Christendom, especially where the\ninfluence of the Reformation is strongest. But we need not only this\nintimate and beautiful priesthood, but one which shall extend to the\nwider families of the city, the nation and mankind. We have to remember\nthat our lives are not our own, that we are each representatives, and\nthat every act of ours must have pontifical significance for others;\nmore than that our very thoughts and desires go out far beyond our own\nlives and help to weave cords which shall pull others upwards or drag\nthem down to our level. The words of Christ's prayer in the Gospel \"For\ntheir sakes I sanctify myself\" are full of significance. If the Master\nthus consecrates his life and overcomes the evil, thrusting aside the\ntemptation to take the lower and easier path and dedicating his whole\nwill and nature to the Divine will, in order that his disciples may be\nhelped to reach unity with each other and with him, then must the\ndisciples too understand that their own efforts after a better and\ncleaner and more unselfish life are not made for themselves alone. There\nis no man that fights in the secret of his own life against evils and\ntemptations, of which others can know nothing, but may feel cheered to\nremember that his is, after all, no lonely battle. He is an outpost,\nhidden from his fellow combatants perhaps, but his welfare concerns the\nwhole company, his victory is not for one life, but for all. In this\nspirit surely [p.112] in every act and thought of life a man may be made\na priest.\n\nHow beautiful an idea that was which in ancient Rome made of\nbridge-building a religious deed, so that the chief bridge-builder, the\nPontifex Maximus, was also the chief priest. Nor was the thought that\nbridge-building was a sacred act wholly lost with Paganism, for in the\nmiddle ages amongst the many religious societies which existed to\npromote human welfare and to lessen by sharing them the burdens of life,\nwas the Order of Pontiff Brothers or bridge-builders. Perhaps such\nsocieties as this came into being more especially to make easier the\nperilous pilgrims' roads along which men must pass to visit the holy\nplaces and shrines of the Saints. Sometimes a pilgrim who had made the\njourney would join himself with others who had realized its hardships to\nmake the way lighter for those who should follow in their steps.\nSometimes, it may be, men who had not the time or money and perhaps\nlacked even the courage to make the perilous voyage themselves, yet\ngladly gave of their labour to help to build the bridge. They could\nnever make use of it, but they hoped that others, better men and more\nfortunate than they, would pass over it to behold the holy sights which\nthey themselves might never see, and long after they were dead their\nwork would thus stand fast. Thus the great bridge of Avignon still rests\non the piers built seven hundred years ago by the Pontiff Brothers, and\nthe feet of [p.113] the little children dance over the arches which the\npilgrims used to tread.\n\nTo many of the early bridges there still cling memories which tell of\nsome noble founder, but there is a peculiar beauty in the story of the\nbuilding of the Bridge of Avignon by Saint Benezet. Of this Saint\nBenezet, or Little St. Benedict, for the friendly pet name can but\nimperfectly be rendered into English, we know only a little; but across\nthe mists of tradition we catch a glimpse of him, a boy tending the\nsheep upon the distant hillside and there receiving a strange heavenly\ncall, bidding him go build a bridge where none had yet been, across the\nbroad river at Avignon, where hitherto men had crossed the Rhone often\nwith peril, and always with toil. Shepherd's staff in hand, the lad came\nto Avignon and entered the church; there he spoke his message to bishop\nand people, and pleaded with them to help build the bridge. Bishop and\npeople were incredulous, and so too was the mayor when appeal was made\nto him, but Benezet persisted, and little by little men began to help\nhim. They tell of how he was in some way able to raise the big stones\nand to lift weights which others failed to move. The first piers began\nto rise; Benezet and others joined the Order of Pontiff Brothers and\nunder his guidance the work went on. It was the labour of years, and of\nimmense effort, and before the bridge was completed its boy builder died\nand they buried him in a little chapel above one of the great piers. But\n[p.114] the building went on, the spirit that Benezet had brought to it\ndid not die with him, and in due time the bridge was built, where men\nwould have toiled and struggled still with the waters, but for the\nfaithfulness of a shepherd boy.\n\nIn the old Pagan days, at least in many lands, the priestly act of\nbridge-building had its darker side. Here and there a curious tradition\nstill survives to show that once the making of a bridge was accompanied\nby the sacrifice of a life. The victim was offered to propitiate the\njealous powers which otherwise might wreak their vengeance upon a larger\nnumber, destroying the bridge and the passengers upon it by some sudden\nstorm or earthquake.\n\nWe have ceased to think the gloomy thoughts which made men build their\nbridges thus in the ancient ages. But still, if the bridge of life is to\nbe well and truly laid, there must be sacrifice at its foundations. The\nthought of the architect, the beauty of the curving arch, all may\ncrumble and fall in the time of stress when the floods are out and the\nriver rushes in boisterous strength against the piers, if the\nbridge-builder has not done his priestly duty. It is good that man's\nlife should be well ordered, clean and happy, useful to others and\nharmonious in itself, but deep down in it, if the life is to stand the\nstrain of evil days and to do its full service, there must surely be the\nstrength of willing sacrifice. The ideal of such Christian sacrifice is\nno sullen, grudging surrender [p.115] of desire, no mutilation of man's\ntrue nature, but the glad gift of life to life, which mingles vicarious\nsorrow with vicarious joy. And as this spirit spreads with the growth of\nthat Kingdom of God which Christ proclaimed to men, the human race will\nrealize more and more fully all that is meant by the priesthood of humanity.\n\n[p.116]\n\n\n    CHAPTER VIII: THE ANSWER OF FAITH\n\nCENTURIES ago, in a far-off Eastern land, a philosopher poet set to\nverse the sad music of his heart's doubts and longings, and the cry that\nrings again and again through his poems finds an echo in men's hearts\nto-day. The mystery of life and death over which Omar Khayam pondered\nhas never ceased to attract the thoughts of men. Returning spring brings\nthe old hopes back to our lives, sometimes with the same sadder echoes\nthat troubled Moschus and Horace, and still thinkers and poets bow\nbefore the terror and the majesty of death which they are powerless to\nexplain.\n\nWhat use then is it to trouble ourselves with a problem which is as old\nas the life of man and which the greater intellects have failed to\nsolve? Think about it we must, again and again, unless we deliberately\nstifle our thoughts when they turn to the things which matter most to\nus. And since we are social beings, born dependent on each other and\nmade to help one another, it is natural that we should wish to share our\nthoughts. [p.117]\n\nWhence? and whither? and why? is a triad of questions over which men\nhave broken their hearts; in a sense they must always remain un\nanswered, or at least incompletely answered; and yet as long as men have\nmade them, one response at least has brought with it peace.\n\nThe problem of life and death was stated long ages before Omar's day by\nanother Eastern thinker, and with a poignancy greater at times than his.\nNowhere in Hebrew literature do we get a deeper sense of the gloomy\nmystery of life than in the book of Ecclesiastes, where again and again\nthe writer makes lament over triumphant injustice, and the end that\ncomes alike to good and bad. There passes before his eyes the melancholy\npageant of the children of men, journeying along through the ages to the\ncommon goal of endless oblivion. \"All things come alike to all,\" he\ncries; \"there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked; to the\ngood and to the clean and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth and to\nhim that sacrificeth not; as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that\nsweareth as he that feareth an oath. This is an evil that is done under\nthe sun, that there is one event unto all; yea, also, the heart of the\nsons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they\nlive, and after that they go to the dead.\" And so too, he goes on to\nspeak of death as annihilation which puts the noblest of dead creatures\nbelow the basest of the living. Probably most men have known some\n[p.118] dark hour at least in which the tragedy of life comes home to\nthem, and they have wondered whether after all the old thinker was not\nright. We take up as our own the refrain of Omar:\n\n/I came like water, and like wind I go,/\n\n/Into this Universe and why not knowing,/\n\n/Nor whence, like water willy-nilly flowing,/\n\n/And out of it as wind along the waste,/\n\n/I know not whither, willy-nilly blowing./\n\nAgain there echo about us out of the past those ancient questions to\nwhich the mind of man is ever framing answers, ever finding unsatisfying\nthose which others have made. How then can religion help, if even with\nits presence those answers still remain incomplete?\n\nWhen faith comes into our hearts, the mystics may tell us, uncertainty\ndoes not go out of them. We are still facing an unknown future, and have\nno more knowledge of the past than have our fellows. But a new factor\nhas come into our consciousness. We are able to go back and face the old\nquestions, and lo, they no longer seem to cut, as once they did, at the\nroots of our being. We have hold of something which goes deeper than\ndoubt can reach, or fear can fall to. And strangely enough, the very\nsame metaphor which Omar uses to express his despair comes from the lips\nof faith, but with how different a meaning:\n\n\"The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou nearest the sound thereof,\nand canst not tell [p.119] whence it cometh and whither it goeth. So is\neveryone that is born of the spirit.\"\n\nBeneath the unanswered question now, there is the abiding sense of the\nreality that endures, a conviction that, though we do not understand its\npurpose, life is not purposeless, and that though we cannot lift the\nveil of death it is only a covering which hides from our eyes a wider\nand greater world than ours.\n\nIt may be that some will feel that all such talk of faith is meaningless\nto them. Religion and faith convey no such notions to their minds as\nthey seem to imply to others. What they want is the clear demonstration,\nwhich a physicist might give us. If life goes on after death there must\nsurely be some proof of it.\n\nIf we try and look at life merely from the stand-point of the\nphysiologist, we do indeed perceive that we only observe it in\nconnection with certain structures of organic matter, and that, as far\nas we are able to see, every act of human conscious ness is accompanied\nby certain processes and changes in the grey tissues of the brain. When\nthose tissues are injured, the expression of this consciousness is\ninterfered with, and when a certain condition of the brain material\ncomes about life ceases, as far as our observation goes. So far as we\ncan observe, indeed, every act of life is accompanied by and connected\nwith some material condition, or at least some material concomitant. But\nthis is as far as the physi- [p.120] ologist can take us. What life is\nhe is still unable to say. To speak of life as energy, and to say that\nenergy is a potential property of matter, is only to hide from ourselves\nwith words the fact that life can only be explained to us in terms of\nlife: the physicists cannot tell us what life is.\n\nIf we admit that we cannot explain what it is in its ultimate nature, we\nare yet all of us conscious enough of what we mean ourselves by life.\nThe word has a real significance to us, although we cannot define it or\nexplain it in any way.\n\nCan we then find any answer from physical science as to whether or no\nour life continues when the bodily change which we call death happens?\nSince life is always connected, as far as we are able to observe it,\nwith certain physical conditions of the body, can it continue when those\nconditions are no longer present?\n\nThere have been many thinkers impressed by the sense of a universe\ngoverned by necessary and unchanging laws, who have felt that they could\nonly answer that since life is in our experience always accompanied by\ncertain material conditions, it must cease to exist when those\nconditions have been removed.\n\nThere is one great assumption, however, which consciously or\nunconsciously underlies this position, that the only universe which\nexists is one that is intelligible to our thought, and that something\n[p.121] which we cannot possibly understand, necessarily cannot possibly\nexist.\n\nBut there is yet another thought which seems to have escaped such a\nthinker: the possibility of the co-existence of more than one world and\nof life passing from one world to another. Mathematicians have already\nshown the possibility of this by discussing the existence of a fourth\ndimension, and even working out problems involving the assumption of the\nexistence of this fourth dimension. The suggestion has been made\nespecially easy to grasp in the remarkable anonymous romance \"Flatland,\"\npublished some thirty years ago, which pictures the world of two\ndimensions, wherein one person gets the notion of the existence of a\nthird dimension, and the extraordinary results that follow his heresy,\nor madness, as it seems to his less enlightened fellows.\n\nIf the theory of the existence of another, or other dimensions be a\ntenable one, we can conceive of the existence of a number of worlds\naround us, co-existing with our own and including it, of which we are\neither wholly unconscious or only very dimly conscious, and that not by\nthe faculties by means of which we have knowledge of our own world.\n\nNow if we suppose that somewhere within us, at the centre of our lives,\nis some meeting-point, some door through which we may have contact with\nthese other worlds and pass out into them, [p.122] we can also conceive\nof a development growing out from this point of contact into that larger\nlife of which we should necessarily remain unconscious here, or even if\nour whole nature were suddenly to be filled by a consciousness of how\nits life extended beyond this universe into those other worlds, we\nshould yet be unable to express in terms of our own world this wider\nlife, or could only express it by symbols. The incapacity of our friends\nto understand our experience would be no proof that it was not true, nor\nwould our own inability to express it in any way lessen the reality of\nthat experience to us. If such a hypothesis be correct, what may happen\nat death may be that we pass out of the narrower world of three\ndimensions into the wider world, which includes this and much more.\n\nAnother way of looking at the problem has been to conceive of our\nvarious senses as channels through which we have entered into\ncommunication with the world without us. At present we most of us are\nonly conscious of five such channels. We may conceive of the possibility\nof many other channels of which we have no experience (and indeed\nobservation of certain living creatures has already led to the\nhypothesis of a sixth sense, different from any of our own), and we can\nalso think of the channels as being one by one closed. So that at death\nwe may conceive of all our existing lines of communication with the\nouter world being removed, and wholly new channels, with [p.123] what\nmay seem like an entirely different world, being opened up.[29] <#_edn29>\n\nSuch an explanation of the working of our universe is but a hypothesis.\nYet after all, it may to some extent help us to understand phenomena\notherwise very difficult to explain. Are not the mystics and seers, the\ninspired poets and prophets, just those whose lives are more in touch\nthan ours with a world we cannot see, often able only imperfectly to\nexpress themselves, but yet conscious of vast realities beyond our ken?\nAnd may we not to some extent look upon faith as such a faculty, or\nsixth sense, taking hold of the unseen and translating it into our own life?\n\nBut all have not this faith, it may be urged; it is strongest often when\nthe intellectual powers are weak enough, and men of the greatest genius\ntell us they are wholly without it. Yet cannot we conceive of a\ncommunity of people almost wholly devoid of one of our own five senses,\nsay that of hearing? How difficult it would be for one of them whose\nears were suddenly opened to explain to his friends the new world about\nhim. Imagine these people watching a skylark, and looking on with\nastonishment at the joy of the one man who heard it singing. A dull\nbrown bird flying aimlessly up into the air: why should he look on it\n[p.124] with such wonder? They see all that he sees, and if he should\ntry to explain his feelings as he listens to its song, will they not one\nand all be convinced that he is mad, or that he is at best only\nrecounting some subjective illusion? If he would convince them, let him\ntranslate into terms of sight these curious sensations. He cannot do it,\nand they can only pity his condition.\n\nThis may help us to realize how narrow a view that is of life which\nconceives of this world of our consciousness as the only one which\nexists. It may even help us to frame a physical hypothesis of another\nlife; but this is not enough for our need. If we are to go to the centre\nof the problem we must turn not to physical difficulties, but to the\nmoral and spiritual ones. It is above all in its failure to solve the\nproblems of our inward life that the materialistic explanation of the\nworld breaks down.\n\nAll the explanations thus suggested have been too much akin to the\nphysical one to touch the heart of the problem. It is when we realize\nthe meaning of faith in our own lives here and now, that we cease to\ntrouble about the future. In the realization of the supreme value of\ngoodness, and the infinite meaning of it, we begin to understand that it\nmust endure, in a sense far deeper than mere extension in time or space.\n\nFaith is the organ of spiritual apprehension, and comes into play\nwhenever we recognise in practice the claim of the ethical ideal as\nopposed [p.125] to the materialistic, when the will to do the good\ntriumphs over the desire to get the good for our selves. In every act of\nthe inward life by which being is set above having, and by which our own\nvisible happiness is subordinated to that of our fellows, there comes\ninto play this activity of the soul which we call faith, by which we\ncome into contact with that which underlies our hopes, and put to test\nthe things we do not see. [30] <#_edn30>\n\nAs this faith comes to dominate and control our lives we are able to\nreach a point at which the old doubts cease to pain us. We may still\nrepeat to ourselves the riddle of life, and seek for an answer; but\nthough we may continue to puzzle to find an explanation, we are\nconscious that we have known something in the presence of which the\nancient questionings cease to trouble. We feel that somehow we have come\ninto touch with a presence which brings with it the solution of the\ngreatest of all problems. In the depths of our lives we listen to the\nanswer of faith.\n\nThus it is that the very words which ring with such a sense of awful\ndespair in the poem of Omar may express nothing but peace to one who has\ngone through this experience: \"He knows about it all, He knows, He\nknows.\" The difference lies in this, that to Omar there is as he writes\nno sense of contact with the Unseen, the Omniscient, in whose power he\nlies; but to him who [p.126] has heard the answer of Faith that sense of\ncontact has come. He knows that in this deepest experience God has come\ninto touch with him, and henceforth life to him both came and goes, out\nof God's hand into God's hand.\n\nWhen Christ was confronted by the sceptical Sadducees with the problem\nof human life enduring beyond the grave, he pointed to their faith that\nthe heroes of old time, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, had had knowledge of\nGod, and told them that this knowledge of God meant life. A being that\nhas come to have communion with the Eternal cannot be conceived of as\npassing away with the changing husk of things, the accidents of the body\nand the outer world. Eternal life does not consist in the duration for\never of an accidental process. If we could conceive of a jelly-fish\ncontinuing thus an indefinite existence, which should involve neither\ninward development nor the possession of higher powers than such a\ncreature is commonly believed to be capable of, we should still surely\nbe unable to speak of such existence as eternal life. For what we mean\nby this is not the mere continuity of existence from a present of\ntransient accidents into a like future, but something which goes beyond\ndeath because it goes beyond life too, as life is ordinarily pictured.\n\nBut can we hope to tread ourselves this way of the Divine life? There\nare times when, the spiritual end which is ever present in our lives\nmakes itself evident to us, and now and again [p.127] across the\ncenturies come periods when the latent desires of men seem to come to\nthe surface. Such was that epoch of spiritual unrest and stirring which\ncame to England in the seventeenth century, in which the Quaker and\nQuietest movements had their birth, and it may be that we are not far\naway from the dawn of such another age to-day. Now, as then, men turn\nfrom orthodoxy in search of something deeper and wider than its mere\ncreeds can give. The works of the old mystics are reissued from the\npress, and in the by-ways of literature men are seeking for paths that\nmay lead them to inward peace. It is still twilight time. No prophet's\nvoice is clearly heard calling us towards the full light of the day, but\nour eyes turn towards the horizon and watch for the signs of dawn.\n\nWe share a common life, and our need to-day is the same, though we may\nexpress it in different ways. We are conscious of something lacking in\nour lives, sensible at least at times of the evil there. We feel the\ndarkness about us, and long for light and for a power that shall take us\nout of our lower natures, upward and onward. At such moments we may\nearnestly desire to come ourselves into communion with God, that his\nlife may flow into ours and transform it. But how, after all, are we to\nattain to some dim realization of this knowledge of God which illumines\nthe lives of the great mystics and brings peace to-day to many a life\nwhich otherwise would be full of painful failure? [p.128] Perhaps\nanother saying from the book of Ecclesiastes may put us upon the path to\nfind the answer. It is one of those words which come sometimes to poet\nand thinker, bearing within them fuller depth of meaning than was clear\nto the writer who first framed them, groping as he may have been at the\nedge of some great truth which he has never consciously apprehended.\n\"Also He hath set Eternity in their heart.\" [31] The words\nwere written in sadness, but there is within them the promise of hope.\nThere lies at once the key to the mystery of human unrest and the hope\nfor some deeper peace than the world without can give. Somewhere in the\ndepths of his own life every man is in touch with the Eternal. Sometimes\nwe are conscious of this higher reality surrounding us, as pervading all\nabout us; on some glorious day alone with Nature the wonder of the world\nflashes upon us, and all things become radiant with a new light which\nfills both us and them. Or silently in the quiet of the night, before\nthe mystery of the starry sky, a great peace comes over us in which our\nown tiny life seems to take its place amidst the ordered harmony of all\nthe spheres.\n\nBut we come, too, to a vision of the Infinite in other ways; whenever we\nsee a good deed done, and behold its goodness, we are touching the hem\nof the robe of the Eternal. In the inward recognition of the supreme\nbeauty of unselfish love we are directly conscious of a flash of\nintuition [p.129] which illumines not the intellect alone, but our whole\nnature. We are brought into touch with God at the very centre of our\nlives. Nature is indeed the priest of the Eternal, and every high place\nhas still its altar, where we may worship in spirit and in truth. But in\nan even deeper sense is the priesthood given to man. There is no man but\nis called to that true temple service wherein every good act is filled\nwith meaning, not for himself only, but for his fellows. Every pure and\nunselfish deed is sacramental, bringing the soul of him who beholds it\ninto touch with the God who inspired the act. And this contact with the\nDivine through goodness in another may come to us in spite of all\nintellectual barriers. If with our whole heart we honour a good deed\ndone our nature does obeisance to the God who is working within it, who\nmakes the deed of worth. Unknown to ourselves, we are drawn nearer to\nHim, and His life touches our lives, and transforms them a little nearer\nto His likeness. For every pure and lovely act that men do is not only a\nrevelation but an inspiration and an influence drawing others upward. We\nhave never had trust enough in the infectious power of a good deed.\n\nThus as we are faithful to the highest it has been given us to see, our\nsight will be strengthened to see further: at the moment of vision we\nare conscious that in the presence of the good thought, the good\npersonality, we are in contact with the source of strength that we need.\nWe must keep [p.130] close to the same source when the darkness is about us.\n\nIt is surely this truth that has helped to make the worship of the\nSaints the power for good which it has been in the lives of devout souls\nwithin the Catholic Church of Rome and of the East. They have done\nreverence to that in the Saints which was of God, and in drawing near to\nthem they have been drawn near to Him also. The worship of the Saints\nhas done harm, not only in the case of the false reverence of the market\nplace, but whenever it has led men to turn from the source of the\nsaint's power to the accidentals of his life and character, and to\nimitate the man, rather than to get into touch with his spirit. But the\nwords of the old Creed, \"I believe in the Holy Catholic Church,\" express\na great reality. We can get the greatest help from this belief in the\ndark hours of the soul, and in all times of transition to fuller\nknowledge of the truth, if by belief in the Church we mean belief in the\nwhole body of those who have come into touch with God through Christ,\nand through his spirit, and who can be recognised as his disciples\nbecause they bear in their lives his likeness. As we believe in the\nChurch in this sense, we shall strive to feel the inner bond of union\nthat connects together the good and holy of all creeds and nations, and\nto bring our lives into harmony with the same spirit of unity.\n\nMen who have shown singular devotion to some [p.131] hero saint whom\nthey love may have erred in the past in trying to reproduce his life\nunder altered conditions; and such imitation has sometimes led them all\ntoo far from the spirit of the one whom they have sought to follow. St.\nFrancis of Assisi, and in later days John Wycliffe, and George Fox, have\neach had followers such as these. But there is at least one to whom we\nmay look for this guidance without any of the narrowing influence that\nother hero worship so often brings. We cannot read about our heroes,\nlook up to them and think of them, without coming under the influence of\ntheir personality and without our character growing unconsciously to\nbear in it some faint trace at least of theirs. Let us then turn thus in\nthe dark hour to Jesus Christ. No matter if for the moment we cannot\nregard him as we have been taught the Church does. Let us put aside all\ntheories as to his birth; the miracles which puzzle us, even the fact of\nthe Resurrection, and the speculations of theology as to his Divine\nnature. Not because these are not important matters, and not because we\nmay not have to go on thinking about them, and seeking more light about\nthem; but because for the guidance which most of all we need we can go\ndeeper than all these doubts and speculations. Let us make Christ our\nteacher as his earliest disciples did, who knew nothing about his birth,\nand only followed him at first just because they felt he was far better\nthan they and they had need of him and loved him. [p.132] As we do this,\nand simply endeavour to keep near to his thoughts, to think over the\nmeaning of his words and to act as men who are seeking to follow him, we\nshall begin to realize that there is in Christ himself a greater miracle\nthan anything recorded of him in the Gospels, and that whatever the\ncorrect theory of the Resurrection may be, He is still a living\ninfluence working upon our hearts and inspiring us onward to good. When\nwe doubt of God because of the world's evil, we can hear his voice speak\nof the love which watches even over the fall of the sparrow, and some\nsense of that love comes to us too, in the midst of our darkness. And\nwhen the sense of our own wrong-doing is heavy upon us, we may feel\ncheered to think that our Teacher never turned from the men of the world\nand the profligate when they sought his help in honest sorrow, but\nrather sought them first, and for the disciple who denied him had\nnothing but a look of love. He knew what it was himself to be\ndiscouraged, to spend long hours in prayer, to be misunderstood and to\nfail. And sometimes there may come to us a glimpse of even deeper depths\ninto which he went for his fellow- men. As we feel all this we may not\nbe able to explain it, but we know ourselves the stronger for it, the\nbetter able to face misfortune and temptation and suffering, and to hold\nmanfully to the best that we know, in the midst of doubt. And thus,\nlittle by little, we come to feel we have found one who not only makes\nus realize what failures [p.133] we have been, but is ever calling out\nthe best that is in us, drawing us on to a higher ground and clearer\nair, where our vision carries further, until at length there may come to\nus some glimpse of the Divine Love at work in the world and within us,\nand some sense that Christ has brought to us God's expression of Himself\nin the terms of humanity, so that we begin to understand a little of the\nmeaning of the words: \"This is life eternal, that they may know Thee,\nthe only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.\"\n\nAnd meanwhile, let us have faith too for those who cannot yet feel this\nattractive power as we, perhaps, have known it. In the Fourth Gospel the\nMaster tells his disciples that he has other sheep who are not of this\nfold; we may picture his thought as going out to far-off lands where men\nwere striving to do their duty or to find the truth without any\nknowledge of him, without any intellectual knowledge of God perhaps;\nsome legionary guarding the peace of the empire at the gates of the\nNorth, some Roman government official upholding the dignity and justice\nof the law amongst jealous robber tribes and unscrupulous traders, some\nGreek philosopher seeking to know a yet higher law, and simple men and\nwomen practising it unknown to themselves; or, further away in the\nfar-off East, the Buddhist missionary teaching the worth of gentleness\nand mercy, or the disciple of Confucius learning to reverence the great\nmoral truths he knew, and to apply them [p.134] in all life's relations.\nSome day all these should hear his voice; already they were his sheep.\nAnd so to-day, wherever the lonely thinker spends his hours in seeking,\nand the servant of science unselfishly gives up all thought of personal\nadvancement and delight in the pursuit of truth, wherever in the\npolitics of towns or peoples men seek to work out a higher form of\npublic life, or in business as in leisure to be faithful not merely to\ntheir own interests, but to a wider ideal, we must see the seekers and\nservants of good, who are God's servants too. Sooner or later for these\ntoo will be fulfilled the words: \"Blessed are they that have not seen\nand yet have believed.\"\n\n\n    CHAPTER IX.: THE HOUSE OF PEACE.\n\nTHE sense of ancient peace, the quiet beauty of the ruined abbeys which\nTurner and many a lesser artist loved to paint, must often have come\nhome to many who visit them, who have no knowledge of architecture and\nlittle thought for history. But, even with these passers by, something\nof their interest in the old ruin is perhaps due to the thought of the\nlife which was lived there in the days gone by. Less worthy traditions\nhave marred the glory of the earlier days, and dimmed the recollection\nof the long struggle with nature, the hardships of a simple,\nself-denying life, the toil of the scholar and the conflicts of the\nsaint, but as we look at the broken pillars and the silent aisles and\narches where once the music of men's chanting rose and fell, we feel\nthat it is not only the thought of the vanished greatness that moves us,\nbut the sense that this was a place where prayer was wont to be made. We\ntry to picture to our selves sometimes the life of mediaeval England,\nand how these ruins were once places living and vibrating with thought\nand spiritual effort, centres [p.136] from which pulsed out many a good\ninfluence to uplift the lives of men.\n\nIt is true that the monastic ideal was in some respects narrow and\none-sided, that its social and religious life was marred and maimed by\nan artificial celibacy being put in the place of the natural family\nlife; but granting all this, had not the monastery at its best a noble\nplace in the nation, which is too often lacking to-day, or but\nimperfectly supplied by other things?\n\nThe rule of St. Benedict prescribed that seven hours daily should be\ngiven by each disciple to manual labour; it was a far-seeing provision,\nin which there seems to have been realized the thought that study and\nprayer alone without active work could not provide a complete and\nhealthy life. The Benedictine and Cistercian Abbeys were, at their best,\nnever self-centred institutions whose members pursued their own\nspiritual welfare without regard to the needs of the world outside.\nTheir scholars copied manuscripts and wrote books for the instruction of\nmen, they were schoolmasters to rich and poor; their lay brothers\nlaboured in the fields, making waste places smooth. Their intercessions\nwent up for others than themselves. Every now and then guests from the\ngreat world came to stay within the abbey walls for rest and refreshment\nof soul, and now and then to end their days in an atmosphere of prayer\nand peace. In some ways, as we know, the coming of the Friars marked a\nstage of higher development, in that they [p.137] shared more fully the\nlife of the people, at least in the simplicity and poverty of the early\ndays of the Franciscan movement. Yet another development again is seen\nin the communities of Brethren of the common life, and in the b\u00e9guinages\nof the Low Countries, which combined something of the possibility of\nindividual home life with a common union for prayer.\n\nIt is interesting to be able to see at Ghent and Bruges to-day these\nquaint communities, where each inmate has her own house, with perfect\nliberty to come and go, to mix with the outer world, or even to return\nto it altogether; but with a common chapel, and a common religious bond\nvisibly uniting the whole sisterhood. Is it not possible, if the\nReformation of Henry VIII. had not been so largely political in its\norigin, that the monastic system might have been in some measure adapted\nto the needs of the world of to-day without those acts of spoliation\nwhich gave the new Tudor aristocracy its wealth and left us these piles\nof ruined buildings?\n\nA famous French novelist who had lived and written as a materialist,\nturned in his closing years back to the ancient Catholic Church, finding\npeace and refreshment as a lay guest within the walls of a monastery.\nMuch of his later work may seem exaggerated, and even morbid, in its\nmysticism, but it was sincere because based upon his own inward\nexperience. In one of these later religious novels he speaks of\ncloistered convents [p.138] as being \"the spiritual lightning conductors\nof Europe.\" To him the lives of these poor women, shut off in perpetuity\nfrom their fellows, were not wasted, but provided a sacrifice of\nspiritual struggle on behalf of the erring world outside.\n\nPerhaps Huysmans was not right in thinking that the self-inflicted\nloneliness of the Poor Clares and Benedictine nuns stood in so high a\nrelation of service to humanity as he pictures; certainly the life of\npractical prayer lived out by a faithful sister of St. Vincent de Paul\namongst the sick poor whom she tends, seems far higher and more\nChristlike than that of the cloistered ascetic; but still the fact\nremains that if we are not materialists, but have faith in the effectual\nworking of all true prayer we must hold that the intercessions of the\ncloister, in so far as they spring from true hearts of faith, are not\nwasted, but, in some way we cannot understand, flow out for the\nuplifting of the world.\n\nAs we look out at the life of to-day must we not feel that in its rush\nand hurry, with the thoughtless materialism of its outlook, there is\nmore than ever need for the essential message of the monastery,\nfellowship in self-surrender and self-control, comradeship in study,\nwork and above all in prayer? Is it not possible for us even now to have\nin our midst here and there little colonies which will do for our age\nthe work which the best monasteries did for the Middle Ages, and perhaps\n[p.139] something more even than this, in that we need no longer have\ntheir limitations?\n\nWhat would such a monastery be, if we can picture it in its main features?\n\nThe first monks were always anxious to have their cells built in some\nout of the way spot, and sometimes moved the site of their abbeys to\navoid the dangers to their inward life which seemed to them to come with\nthe invasions of sounds and sights, which the approach of \"the world\"\nbrought with it. We do not now believe in the separation of the life of\nthe Church from that of men outside it, and there was at times, perhaps,\nsome thing selfish in the monkish love of quiet isolation, but for\ncertain high purposes of the monastery there was a sound instinct in it\ntoo. If the community remains in living touch with those without,\nsending its members out from it and receiving guests on visits long or\nshort, it will, in many cases, do its work best if its situation\nprovides it with a natural atmosphere and background of peace and quiet,\ncorresponding to that inward atmosphere which is to play around the life\nof its members.\n\nOur monastery then will be placed in some little frequented spot, if\npossible close to one of those natural bridges over which we may most\neasily pass into communion with the life of nature unmarred by man's\ncivilization; at the edge of some rolling heather moorland, where for\nmiles you may walk and see no sign of house or road, under a ridge\n[p.140] of the limestone fells, or beneath the shadow of a great chalk\ndown, where the sheep wander freely, or if mountain and moor be too far\naway, within reach of some solitary beach where the sea and wind sing to\neach other; or with an outlook over some wide plain, with broad horizons\ngiving some sense of openness and freedom.\n\nThus the companions of the House of Peace will have constantly near them\nthe opportunity of silent intercourse with nature; they can go out, wet\nor fine, sometimes alone and sometimes in company, to let the fresh\nwinds and the sunlight and the spirit of the great open spaces play\nabout them, making them stronger and fitter for joy and labour, for\nstudy, work and prayer.\n\nFor the House of Peace will be a dwelling place where work is done. It\nwill have its garden, with flowers and fruit trees to be tended, kitchen\nherbs to be raised; there will be beehives and poultry, and it may be\nthe cares of a small farm; but beast and bird will be treated as\nfriendly companions, objects of the Divine care and therefore, too, of\nthe good will and reverence of the dwellers in the House.\n\nThere will be books: especially such as will help most the inner life of\nman, the /Acta sanctorum/, and all stories of the saints of God; the\nrecords of other religions than ours, the works of philosophers, poets\nand thinkers; and such a general library as would befit a home whose\nwindows look out on to many sides of life.\n\n[p.141]\n\nBut it will not be enough for the House to be supplied with opportunity\nfor fruitful study, quiet cells for work and meditation, and with manual\nlabour in garden, field and orchard for all who are fitted for it. Side\nby side with all this, lest the life of the place grow self-centred,\nthere must be some redemptive work going on, for those who would not\nthemselves have been helped by all this storehouse of good things, apart\nfrom the mediation and ministry of its inmates.\n\nThis might be found in the education of back ward or delicate children\nfrom poor homes, physically or mentally in need of special care and\nprotection, or in the care of convalescents; it might be found in the\ntraining upon the adjoining farm or in the carpenter's workshop, as well\nas in special classes held within the House itself, of a small group of\nlads from some reformatory, or juvenile offenders to whom our present\nprison system offers only imperfect means of succour. In helping in\ntheir training, in joining in their games the companions of the House of\nPeace would find a noble part of their own work and joy; they would hope\ntoo to share with these younger brothers not a little of the deeper\ninspiration of common worship.\n\nThere might be as a part of the House rooms for married companions,\nwhile single men and single women could be lodged in separate wings or\nin hostels of their own. Grouped near there might be cottages with homes\nlinked to the House [p.142] by ties more or less close, whose inmates\nwould share in much of the work of the community and in the privilege of\ncommon worship. The centre of all would be the place of prayer, the\nhearth where each companion would come to rekindle his own torch of love\nand aspiration; a place always open, used in common at certain times and\nby all companions who were able to come there, used also frequently\nthroughout the day for silent prayer and meditation, whether by the\ncompanions and their guests, or the passing stranger who might care to\nenter in.\n\nAt least at one meal during the day the ancient practice would be\nmaintained of one companion reading aloud from some helpful book while\nthe rest kept silence. During certain hours of the day silence would\nalso be observed, though with no slavish bond.\n\nThe Buddhist monasteries of Burmah fulfil in the life of that people a\nplace which might, to some small extent, be taken for us by a group of\nsuch Houses of Rest. It is the duty of every Burmese Buddhist who\ndesires to fulfil the whole ideal of manhood to pass some portion of his\nlife, it may be months or years, it may even be only weeks or days, as a\nmonk in a Buddhist monastery, learning its lessons and drinking in its\npeace. So, too, into our House of Rest might come, at different stages\nof their lives, the eager seeker after truth, the strong man in the\nmidst of the battle of his work, the weary, [p.143] tired and\ndisheartened by their failure; all would find a welcome, a home of\nrefreshment, where in the atmosphere of prayer, with the daily round of\nsimple work, of study, of open air life and common worship, they might\nfind guidance and renewal of strength. Some might only stay for a short\nwhile, others for longer periods; yet others might find in the House of\nRest their central home, returning there at intervals after periods of\nlabour as social ministers in the crowded towns, in which, perhaps, a\nnumber of different branches of work might be affiliated in some way to\nthe central House of Rest, which would be a storehouse to supply help to\nthese branches far away.\n\nOne of the rocks upon which the old monastic system made shipwreck was\nthe corporate selfishness which came to the monks through their\npossessions. They had renounced individual wealth, but they were too\nzealous to secure for their abbeys the property which might enhance\ntheir usefulness and assure their future growth. Believing as we do that\ninstitutions like men must die to give place to new life, we must not\ntry to secure an earthly immortality for a good institution, any more\nthan for a good individual. It would probably be best then that our\nHouse of Rest should not be a legal corporation, able to own and receive\nproperty. Its companions should be tenants on God's earth; their House\nshould be lent them in trust, but not be owned by them. It might still,\nhowever, be possible for those who [p.144] desired for a longer period\nto have the privilege of holy poverty, to renounce for the time being\ntheir own income, without taking any vow or handing over to the\ncommunity possessions which they might rightly resume at a later date,\nin trust for the world they would serve.\n\nPaul Sabatier has finely said that one of the great claims which\ndistinguishes still the ancient Catholic Church is the unlimited\nopportunity for self-sacrifice which she holds forth to her children. We\ncannot get the utmost except for the highest. Our house of prayer and of\nwork, where self-denial might be found to the full united with the joy\nof service, would give this opportunity of self-surrender, of\nself-discipline untainted by false asceticism, of comradeship in\nsacrifice and in the purest joys and highest aspirations of the heart,\nwhich in the depths of our soul we need and long for. May it not even\nyet be built, this House of Peace and Prayer?\n\n\n    CHAPTER X.: THE PATH TO UNITY.\n\nA GREAT patristic scholar who, though a lover of theology, is also a\nlover of his fellow-men, has related how, journeying across the lonely\ndesert of Arabia the Rocky towards the holy monastery of Sinai, he came\nupon a band of peasant pilgrims; he did not know their language nor they\nhis, but each made the sign of the Cross as they drew near one another,\nand as they did so they seemed at once to be friends. He was greeted\nwith welcoming smiles, and the way through the wilderness was lightened\nby the sense of Christian fellowship. It cheered him to feel how that\nancient sacred symbol had surmounted the barriers of race and speech,\nmaking these strangers feel that they were comrades and fellow pilgrims\ntravelling to a common goal. And yet he could not but recall with a\nsense of sorrowful irony the thought that, had he made the sign of the\nCross not in the Greek, but in the Latin way, he would have been met\nwith sullen indifference and distrust, if not with anger. These simple\nRussian peasants were the spiritual descendants of the [p.146] brave men\nwho centuries ago went to death at the stake rather than place their\nfingers and thumb in the new-fangled way, which, to their mind,\nsymbolised some error in the conception of the doctrine of the Trinity,\na departure from the one orthodox fashion by which the Church should be\nguided in making the holy sign.\n\nIt is difficult for us to realise that so small a change should make so\ngreat a difference to the welcome given to a stranger; and, yet, perhaps\nsome of the differences which separate Western Christians to-day may be\nalmost as foolish in the sight of the angels.\n\nAn English parson once sadly told how, when travelling in France in his\ncassock, he had been delighted by a number of ecclesiastics coming to\ncall upon their foreign confrere, and how, to his dismay, they all\nincontinently fled, as from contagion of plague, when they realised that\nhe was only an Anglican; he doubtless felt acutely the blindness of the\nworthy Romans who failed to recognise the apostolic nature of his\norders. As acutely, perhaps, some Nonconformist minister at home may\nhave regretted a similar attitude on the part of the good parson to the\nunhallowed ministrations of the dissenter.\n\nWhen we look back over the long centuries that separate us from the\nearly Apostolic Church, there are few things which make us sadder than\nthis spirit of distrust and hostility, showing itself between men who\nalike believe themselves to be Christians. [p.147] It is no new thing;\nwhat is new to-day as a wide spread spirit is the desire to transcend\nour differences, not by despising or ignoring the things which separate\nus, nor yet by the victory of one church or sect over another, or the\nabsorption of the lesser by the greater community, but by the better\nunderstanding of each other and of ourselves, the closer co-operation\nwhere co-operation is possible, and, it may be, the gradual realisation\nof a unity deeper than all that keeps us apart.\n\nWe remember how the mocking scorn of Celsus made sport of the divisions\nbetween Catholic and heretic Christians of his day, while both alike\nwere a persecuted minority struggling against the edicts of pagan Rome.\nMontanists and orthodox suffered sometimes side by side, and yet, while\nawaiting death in the same prisons, they would hold no communion with\neach other.\n\nThis tragic mutual intolerance between Arian and Athanasian, Iconodule\nand Iconoclast, goes on down the ages; was it not, in part at least, one\nwonders, due to the fact that each party considered that they alone had\nthe monopoly of truth; that their own doctrine contained the whole truth\nand nothing but the truth? Free trade in thought, if it be right to use\nthe metaphor of commerce for the life-giving intercourse of mind with\nmind, is late in coming in the world's history, but it has surely come\nto stay. As we look back over the great divisions of the past, we feel\nnow that there was some right at least on both sides: in some [p.148]\ncases we find it hard to understand how men could have fought so\nbitterly over what seems now so small. The shape of the tonsure of the\nclergy, the date of the celebration of Easter, and such grounds of\ndifference, caused almost as much bitterness in their day as did\nprofound dissensions on the nature of the Godhead or the meaning of the\nIncarnation. Even when no theological difference separated men, within\nthe Church itself and within a single religious order, there has been\nthe bitterest disagreement and separation of spirit over things we now\nhold trifling; such a matter, for instance, as the shape of the hood to\nbe worn by Observant Franciscans, at the time of the rise of the\nCapuchin Friars.\n\nWe have come at length to understand that the human spirit expresses\nitself in various ways in its upward striving, that the language of\nworship may vary for different races, for different men within the same\nrace, for the individual himself with his changing needs, and that in\ndiffering we need not always condemn each other. So, too, it seems that\nmen are ceasing to feel that uniformity in Church government is possible\nor even desirable. The work of the Free Church Council with all its\nlimitations has enabled the members of the larger Nonconformist bodies\nto co-operate together and understand each other better, to feel a\ncommon unity of membership while retaining their loyalty to their own\ndenomination. This drawing together has been realised, not by discussion\nof [p.149] denominational differences, but by common work and common\nworship, by sharing in the same efforts, listening to the same messages\nof guidance, following as co-disciples along the same road.\n\nStill more remarkable as an expression of the vital forces at work in\nEnglish society is the growth of inter-denominational fellowship shown\nin the Student Christian movement, and the conferences which it has\npromoted, characterised by joint study of social and missionary\nproblems, and by union in worship, in which denominational barriers have\nnot indeed disappeared, but have sunk on to a lower level, for many at\nleast of those who have been thus drawn together to behold the vision of\nthe vast work still unaccomplished at home and abroad, with the\nknowledge that all alike are coming for strength to one source, striving\nto serve one Master.\n\nWhile a friendlier understanding has been helping men to cross by\nsympathy the ancient chasms which have separated church from church for\nso long, there has been visible too in recent years a marked tendency\ntowards greater organic unity between religious communities closely\nallied to each other. Locally this has occasionally found expression in\nthe springing up of \"union churches,\" whose members originally belonged\nto different Nonconformist denominations, but such union sometimes has\ncome about for convenience rather than from conviction, and has not\nalways been permanent in character. It is different with the [p.150]\nunion of the three Methodist Societies now combined in the United\nMethodist Church, or with the great movement which brought about the\nUnited Free Church of Scotland. We may look forward in the near future\nto still further developments of this spirit, and already a leader of\nFree Church thought, Dr. J. H. Shakespeare, the Secretary of the Baptist\nUnion, has outlined proposals for the incorporation of the great\nNonconformist denominations in one national communion, a Free Church of\nEngland, which would retain within its compass the different rites and\nsystems of Church government of its various constituent churches. This\nwould still leave unsolved the greater problem of the separation between\nthe Free Churches and the Church of England, but it would be in itself\nan immense step forward as a practical recognition of common\ndiscipleship, and as such would be welcomed warmly by many of us who,\nalmost certainly, would be left outside the ecclesiastical membership of\nthis great Free Church. The Free Church Council has already done\nsomething to make such a union possible; and even if no formal\nconnection between various churches whose members are associated with\nits work should be achieved, yet, in point of fact, a common member ship\nis being realised by them. The great leaders of Free Church thought and\naction are recognised not merely as belonging to one denomination, but\nas prophets and teachers for all. The worth of their ministry is felt\neven by those who cannot [p.151] recognise the validity of their orders,\nbecause of its non-episcopal origin.[32] <#_edn32>\n\nAnd yet all such plans for the promotion of visible ecclesiastical\nreunion do not touch the heart of things. In earlier ages men have\nsought reunion through ecclesiastical organisation and through fuller\nrealisation of doctrinal unity, and [p.152] have failed repeatedly in\nthe attempt. Can we hope to achieve union now by some ingenious scheme\nof comprehensive Church Government or by the formulation of a new creed\nwhere all the old creeds have failed to unite men?\n\nWould not even the widest Church leave outside its membership multitudes\nnow drawing together in Adult Schools and Brotherhoods and kindred\nSocieties, under the inspiration of Christian influence, but without any\nformal connection with the Church, and beyond them an unknown number of\nmen and women whose lives turn for their inspiration to the Master whose\nname they reverence, but do not venture to take?\n\nYet such men, whose life-creed is better than their thought-creed, are a\nproof that discipleship is a vital relationship, involving more than a\nmere emotional surrender or intellectual submission. It will surely be\nin the more faithful working out of this conception of discipleship,\nthat Christian folk will be able to achieve that spirit of unity which\nis of more value than external Reunion.\n\nWherever wrong ideals of life exist, we are coming to feel there is a\nloss, not merely to the individuals immediately concerned, but to an\never widening circle about them. We cannot acquiesce in moral failure or\ndivest ourselves of responsibility for it, because we ourselves adopt a\ndifferent standpoint. Much less can we consent to make a truce with what\nwe see is wrong in the Church to which we belong. [p.153]\n\nA sixteenth century Cardinal who was engaged in controversy with his\nProtestant colleague, Odet de Coligny, found a curious consolation for\nthe practical failure of the Church of his day by his exposition of a\ntext in the Song of Solomon: \"I am black but comely,\" was, he held, a\nprophetic saying applied to the Church, black in point of morals, comely\nin point of doctrine.\n\nTo-day, however much we may differ in doctrine, we are coming to feel\nthat in every failure to realise the Christian ideal of character, the\nloss of each religious community is the loss of all; wherever a Church\nrises to higher levels of sacrifice, or raises the standard of its\nmembers' lives, the benefit is felt far beyond its own borders.\n\nThe saints, whether canonised or uncanonised by authority, are the\ncommon heritage of all who are striving to find their lives dominated by\nthe same purpose; they are a constant unifying influence throughout the\nworld, even though their messages differ as greatly as they often have\ndone in the past.\n\nAs the different Christian communities frankly face the unconquered\nevils in the world about them, as their individual members set\nthemselves to wrestle against the selfish instincts in their own lives,\nand to become more effective agents of peace and goodwill amongst their\nneighbours and worthier citizens of the state, they will find themselves\nworking side by side with allies they had not hitherto known; in\nextending the bounds of [p.154] knowledge and the rule of a kindlier\nlaw, sharing the same spirit of sacrifice, facing the same difficulties,\nthey will be united by more than a common hope, they will feel within\nthem the inspiration of the same spirit.\n\nIf then the new spirit making for co-operation and truer understanding\nof each other which is already at work amongst the different churches is\nto have fuller influence, do we not need to set out with a new\nenthusiasm upon the common task which awaits us at home and abroad, and\nto work out together new applications of the social teaching of the\nChristian Church? For many, this will come along the lines of political\nand municipal action, in using what powers and duties the law already\ngives us, as well as in making better laws or claiming extended\nfacilities for communal action.\n\nBut however much the powers and functions of the state may be altered\nand extended, there are vast regions which must for ever lie outside its\ndomain: evils which laws and bye-laws cannot control, where the\nmysterious forces of personality have play, and the healing spiritual\ninfluences may work, which come with the direct contact of goodness and\nunselfishness, upon the broken and bruised failures of humanity. The\nstate may punish wrong-doing, it may prevent particular acts of crime,\nit may confine its hardened criminals within the walls of a prison. It\ncannot convert them from themselves, it cannot redeem them. The state\nmay give pensions to old age, and make [p.155] provision for the sick,\nthe blind and the maimed, the epileptic, the lunatic, the idiot and the\nfeeble-minded. It cannot bring to these darkened lives what most they\nneed, the sunlight of human love and comradeship, the healing influence\nof an atmosphere of prayer and of unselfish service in which they may\ncome themselves into touch with the Centre and Source of this pure and\ncleansing stream of good.\n\nThis must be once again the task of the Church, as it was in the best\ndays of the monasteries, the guilds and confraternities of the middle\nages. We need to have a fresh Crusade, not to conquer any far-off enemy,\nbut against our apathy towards the social evils in our midst. Can we not\nhope to see a network of new guilds and brotherhoods, settlements,\nhouses of peace and healing, covering the length and breadth of the\nland, where men and women will sacrifice some portion at least of their\nlives, giving of their work and leisure to this task? Some will afford a\nshelter to the outcasts of society, who are driven now from prison to\ncasual ward, and from workhouse to jail, for whom the commercial world\nhas no use, to whom the law offers nothing but threats and penalties:\nothers will provide training for boys or girls who have been committed\nto industrial schools, or will offer a fresh start to those who have\nfallen into serious crime: there will be some which will try to provide\na home and work for the weaklings, or those who are prevented by mental\nor physical defect from [p.156] holding their own in the ordinary\nstreams of life. Others again will offer an asylum to sickness,\nhelplessness and old age. Centres of prayer, as well as centres of work,\nthey will be the schools of saints, where men in serving the needy in\nmany different ways, will all the while be brought nearer to the\nultimate reunion of Christendom and of humanity.\n\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n[1] The words of Celsus ring strangely in our ears after\nthese seventeen centuries and more: \"You may hear all those who differ\nso widely, and who assail each other in their disputes with the most\nshameless language, uttering the words, 'The world is crucified unto me,\nand I unto the world'\" (Origen, \"Contra Celsum,\" v. \u00a7 64; and cf. iii \u00a7 12).\n\n[2] \"Les Apotres,\" p. 56.\n\n[3] i Cor. xiv. 24, 25\n\n[4] xlii. 4, 5.\n\n[5] [Greek: I will appoint their bishops in righteousness\nand their deacons in faith]\n\n[6] ad Smyrn. viii. i, 2.\n\n[7] The earliest Latin versions of the Bible seem often to\nhave used the word sacramentum to translate the Greek \u03bc\u03c5\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd, thus in\nSt. Matthew xiii. 11, in reply to the disciples' query \"Why speakest\nthou unto them in parables?\" is given the response \"To you is given to\nknow the sacraments of the Kingdom of Heaven, but to them it is not\ngiven\" (Cod. Bobbiensis). Even the Vulgate retains this rendering in a\nnumber of passages (Eph. i. 9; iii. 3; v. 32; Revelation i. 20), and one\ncannot help wishing that our English version might have retained so\nbeautiful a rendering as \"the sacrament of His will,\" or the reference\nto the mystical union of Christ and His church as \"the great sacrament.\"\nSimilarly, it is interesting to hear the Vulgate speak of \"the sacrament\nof the seven stars,\" in the Apocalypse, and to read in i Tim. iii. 16,\n\"great is the sacrament of godliness.\"\n\n[8] De Anima, ix.\n\n[9] Adv. Marcion, v. 4.\n\n[10] Adv. Marcion, v. i.\n\n[11] \"/Hoc enim lignum tunc in sacramento erat/\" (Adv.\nJudaeos, xii.).\n\n[12] \"/Nolite verba, cum sacramentum meum erit\ncanendum,providenter quaerere/ .\"\n\n[13] \"/Quid enim sunt aliud quaeque corporalia sacramenta\nnisi quaedam quasi verba visibilia sacrosancta quidem, veruntamen\nmutabilia at temporalia/ ?\" (Contra Faustum Manichaeum., Lib. xix. Cap.\n16.).\n\n[14] (\"De Praescriptione Haereticorum\" xl.) At his best,\nhowever, Tertullian, at least in one of his works, did seem to go\nfarther than this, and to recognise in the instinctive strivings of\nnatural religion the witness of the soul to the truths revealed in\nChrist (\"De Testimonio Animae\").\n\n[15] The \"Guide des ceremonies civiles\" (Par Lux, Paris, 1902).\n\n[16] See i Cor. i. 14-15. \"For Christ sent me not to\nbaptize but to preach the Gospel.\"\n\n[17] i Cor. xv.\n\n[18] Aug. de Baptismo Lib. iv. Cyprian had instanced this\nas a case of baptism of blood, but Augustine pointed out that the\npenitent thief suffered not as a Christian, but in punishment for a crime.\n\n[19] De Poen, C. vi.; cf. xii. and xiii.\n\n[20] It is more generally held at present by scholars that\nthe Didache was written in Egypt; but would not this prayer rather befit\nthe hilly country of Phrygia, where afterwards Montanus taught?\n\n[21] Rev. W. Tuckwell: \"Reminiscences of Oxford.\"\n\n[22] \"Mundi imago divinae sapientise et potentiae praeconium.\"\n\n[23] Exodus xix. 6.; Isaiah Ixi. 6.\n\n[24] I Peter ii. 5, 9.\n\n[25] Rev. v. 10; xx. 6.\n\n[26] Romans xii. i.\n\n[27] Tim. iv. 6. Cf. Phil. iii. 17: \"If I be poured forth\nas a libation upon the sacrifice and service (Liturgy) of your faith;\"\n\n[28] Irenaeus is apparently the first to use the term\n\u03b9\u03b5\u03c1\u03b5\u03cd\u03c2 (sacrificing priest) instead of the earlier title of \u03c0\u03c1\u03b5\u03c3\u03b2\u03cd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2\n(elder).\n\n[29] This suggestion, and several of the preceding ones,\nare set forth with much greater fulness and clearness by Mr. St. George\nStock in the Hibbert Journal for January, 1906.\n\n[30] \u0400\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9 [\u0400\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03bd]\u03b4\u1f72 \u03c0\u03af\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03c2 \u1f10\u03bb\u03c0\u03b9\u03b6\u03bf\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03c9\u03bd \u1f51\u03c0\u03cc\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c0\u03c1\u03b1\u03b3\u03bc\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd\n\u1f14\u03bb\u03b5\u03b3\u03c7\u03bf\u03c2ou \u03bf\u1f50 \u03b2\u03bb\u03b5\u03c0\u03bf\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03c9\u03bd Heb 11:1.\n\n[31] Ecclesiastes iii. 11.\n\n[32] It is possible that some day this difficulty might be\nsurmounted by the willingness of a small group of such Free Church\nleaders to receive conditional episcopal consecration at the hands of\nsome friendly Gregorian or Nestorian Bishops. They could then preach\nfrom the pulpit in Church or Cathedral at the invitation of the\nauthorities of the Church of England, and, by receiving their episcopal\norders conditionally, they would place no stigma on their Nonconformist\ncolleagues. The Free Churches would then be somewhat in the position of\nthe old Celtic Churches before the conquest of Britain by Latin\nChristianity, when Bishops did not rule by monarchial methods over fixed\ndioceses, but exercised a more personal influence from their monastic\nhomes, where sometimes several Bishops resided together at once. We\nshould thus have a Free Church College of Bishops exercising authority\nby reason of their personal and spiritual qualifications and seeking no\nother sanction than the weight which such an influence would give.\n\nThere may be difficulties in the way of such a proposal, but many\nNonconformists who could not agree to accept the diocesan method of\nChurch government would have little or no objection to such overseers of\nthe Free Churches, who, holding an unpaid office, carrying no legal\nprivileges, would have no right to rule, but rather be recognised as\nteaching, advising or pleading, with the authority of an elder brother\nin the spiritual family of which they would be members. Such a simple\napostolic episcopate, strengthened from time to time by the addition of\nnew members called to accept their office by the voice of their Church,\nmight afford for those who have need of it a sign of visible communion\nbetween the Protestant Churches and the older episcopal churches of East\nand West.","title":"A Wayfarer's Faith: Aspects of the common basis of religious life","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":39756}