Emil G. Beck 
 
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THE CRISIS 
 OF THE CHURCHES 
 
THE CRISIS 
 OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 BY 
 
 LEIGHTON PARKS, D.b, 
 
 RECTOR OF ST, BARTHOLOMEW'S CHURCH 
 IN THE CITY or NEW YORK 
 
 Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide." 
 
 — ^James Russell Lowell. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1922 
 

 
 
 COPYMGHT, 1922, BT 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 Printed in United States of America 
 
 Published March. 1922 
 
 IN MEM0T7TAM 
 
TO THE MEMORY OF 
 MY GODFATHER 
 
 WILLIAM AUGUSTUS MUHLENBERG, D.D. 
 A UNIVERSAL CHRISTIAN 
 
 935143 
 
PREFACE 
 
 I AM indebted to my friends, the Rev. Frederic Palmer, 
 D.D., editor of the Harvard Theological Review, and the 
 Rev. Percy Gordon, my associate in St. Bartholomew's 
 Church, for doing me the favor of reading this book in 
 manuscript and making valuable suggestions of which I 
 have availed myself. It is not, however, to be supposed 
 that they are responsible for any part of this book or are 
 necessarily in agreement with the opinions therein ex- 
 pressed. My thanks are also due to Miss Helen K. Ful- 
 larton for reading the proof. 
 
 St. Paul exhorted his readers to "speak the truth in 
 love," and it is to be assumed that he endeavored to fol- 
 low that rule in all his epistles, but evidently he did not 
 always succeed in avoiding offense. It will not be strange 
 then, if although I have tried in the following pages to 
 speak the trutli in love, I too should give offense to some 
 whom I would not willingly wound. Moreover, I fear 
 that some such may be found in that room of the House- 
 hold of Faith in which it was my happy lot to be born. 
 But I would ask them to consider that statements of facts 
 to which attention is called can easily be verified by refer- 
 ence to the authorities which are open to all, and that for 
 this reason I have not cumbered the pages with unneces- 
 sary foot-notes; and that the opinions herein expressed are 
 honest convictions, the result of many years of study and 
 thought. These opinions may be, as I believe they are, 
 right; in which case I beg that they will be considered dis- 
 passionately and not condemned offhand because they 
 lead to conclusions which may not be congenial with cer- 
 tain theories of the church which the reader may have 
 accepted on authority without careful examination. 
 
 vii 
 
viii PREFACE 
 
 On the other hand, they may be erroneous; in which 
 case I shall rejoice to be set right; but this should not be 
 done by an appeal to authority, but by sound reasons. 
 
 Whether my readers agree with me or not, I am sure 
 they will feel that the questions here raised are worthy of 
 the serious consideration of Christian men. Not, then, in 
 the spirit of controversy, but in the hope that we may 
 find a way out of the difficulties which beset the church 
 in this day of crisis, I submit this work to the judgment of 
 religious men and women. j p 
 
 All Saints* Day, 
 192 1. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPIER PAGE 
 
 Introduction xi 
 
 I. The Crisis of Civilization i 
 
 II. The Mission of the Churches 13 
 
 III. The Task of the Churches 28 
 
 IV. Sectarianism 43 
 
 A, Protestant. 
 
 V. Sectarianism » . S4 
 
 B, Catholic. 
 
 VI. Organic Unity 68 
 
 VII. Church Unity 84 
 
 VIII. Spiritual Unity 94 
 
 IX. The English Tradition ....... 109 
 
 X. The Evolution of the Ministry . . . . 125 
 
 XI. The Future Ministry 142 
 
 Xn. Worship 154 
 
 XIII. Doctrine 169 
 
 A, The Faith of the Church. 
 
 XIV. Doctrine 191 
 
 J5. The Catholic Creeds. 
 
 XV. Sacramentarianism 208 
 
 XVI. Fellowship 228 
 
 ix 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 It will be generally admitted, even by the most optimis- 
 tic, that we have come to a crisis in the history of civiliza- 
 tion. The word crisis is used in two different senses; 
 sometimes it means no more than that a turning-point has 
 been reached, as when, in speaking of a disease, it is said 
 that the crisis has or has not been passed. But the origi- 
 nal meaning of the word has a deeper significance than 
 that; it means also a judgment. This is what not a few 
 religious men believe the present crisis of the world to be. 
 They believe that it is the revelation of God's estimate of 
 our civilization — the condemnation of that materialistic 
 conception of life which first poisoned our philosophy, 
 then our theory of government, and, finally, affected all 
 society, leading men and women to believe that a man's 
 life does consist in the abundance of the things which he 
 possesses till there was nothing left but to cry: "Let us 
 eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." 
 
 That the crisis of the world should produce a repercus- 
 sion on the church was inevitable, but that the church 
 may fail even if Western civilization goes down in ruin 
 will be said by some to be unthinkable. "Have we not 
 the promise of Christ that * the gates of hell shall not pre- 
 vail'? And does not that mean that the church shall 
 stand till the end of time?" 
 
 Whether those are the words of Christ himself, or the 
 expression of that exuberant hope of immortal youth which 
 filled the breast of the church in the early days, we need 
 not now consider. Even though the words were spoken by 
 Jesus, the inference may be quite different from what we 
 have assumed it to be. The church may remain if the 
 
xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 churches fail. And that means that the church of Christ 
 will not be lost even if every church now known to us were 
 to disappear. It is significant that in the vision of the 
 ideal life, which he calls the city of God, the seer "saw no 
 temple there." But even if the words of the gospel be 
 taken in the traditional sense, it should be remembered 
 that this promise of Christ, like all the promises of God, 
 is conditional. The promise to the Christian church is no 
 more solemn than the promise to Israel. Israel failed. 
 Why may not the Christian church — ^at least in any form 
 with which we are familiar — also fail? 
 
 It might, then, be well before considering the present 
 crisis of the churches to recall other crises through which 
 the church has passed. The story of the first is embodied 
 in the Book of Jonah, which, because it begins with the 
 incredible story of the swallowing of a man by a great fish 
 and his return to active life after a three days' entomb- 
 ment in its belly, has become the favorite subject of the 
 scoffer, but a more intelligent study of that ancient para- 
 ble might lead to the conclusion that it is not only one of 
 the most precious books of the Old Testament but also 
 has a meaning for the modem church. 
 
 Had the introduction to the Book of Jonah been written 
 by a Greek it would appeal to the modem mind as the 
 Hebrew story cannot do. One of the Greek myths is much 
 like the Biblical story. When Arion incurred the wrath 
 of Apollo he was cast into the sea by the frightened sailors, 
 but instead of being swallowed by a great fish, he was 
 saved by the grateful dolphin, which, charmed by the 
 music of his lyre, hovered about the ship, and then joy- 
 fully carried the musician on his back to the safety of the 
 land. 
 
 This is so evidently a myth that the modem mind has 
 no difficulty in receiving it and finding in it a poetical 
 illustration of the providence which is wider than the influ- 
 ence of any particular god. But no Hebrew could have 
 
INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 written such a story. In the first place, the Hebrews were 
 not a seafaring people like the Greeks. To them the sea 
 was always a thing of terror. The last of all the Hebrew 
 Biblical writers finds comfort in the thought that in the 
 ideal life ''there shall be no more sea." But there was a 
 deeper reason than that: the Hebrew mind, if not devoid 
 of humor, at least knew nothing of the playfulness of the 
 Greek temperament. Humor took the form of irony. 
 Life was as serious to the Hebrew as to his modem repre- 
 sentative, the Puritan. The eternal God determined all 
 things in heaven and earth and in the sea. Jonah, like 
 Arion, is cast into the sea, but no playful dplphin may 
 rescue the man who is fleeing from Jehovah. If he is to 
 be saved, it must be by him whom he seeks to escape. 
 The "great fish" which swallows the prophet had been 
 prepared by God. To the Greek the myth was a joyful 
 revelation; to the Hebrew it was a solemn warning. 
 
 The problem of religion in America is complicated by 
 the fact that the American temperament has much of the 
 Greek frivolity, and yet its religion is permeated by the 
 solemn atmosphere of the Hebrew. The result of this is 
 seen in the different ways in which men react to such a 
 story as that of Jonah and the "whale." To the irreverent 
 it is a subject of mockery; to the deeply religious it is com- 
 plicated by the fact that it seems to have received the 
 sanction of the Divine Teacher, but to-day we should be in 
 a position to study the book with a clearer understanding. 
 
 The book itself is easily understood if we turn to it with 
 open mind and ask ourselves what it was the writer wished 
 to say. He had in mind to do what Bunyan did in "The 
 Pilgrim's Progress." He was writing a great allegory. If 
 the reader believes the story of Christian's fight with the 
 dragon — ^and who does not? — then he will believe in the 
 same way that Jonah was swallowed by the "whale." 
 
 If only we could read the story as a great allegory, as it 
 was intended to be read, and was certainly so understood 
 
xiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 by the contemporaries of the writer, we should find that it 
 has a much-needed lesson for the churches to-day. 
 
 To us the story of the prophet swallowed by the whale 
 seems incongruous and absurd, but to the men who first 
 read the book it was most apposite, for they knew that 
 the experience of Jonah in the fictitious writing was a 
 great parable of Israel's experience in the world-wide con- 
 vulsion of the days when the Assyrian Empire conquered 
 the world. 
 
 One of the results of the unhappily named "higher criti- 
 cism"* has been to show us when, and so why, this book 
 of an imknown author was written. It was after the return 
 from the captivity, perhaps about the year 350 B. C, when 
 Greece was preparing for her great invasion of the East, 
 which was destined to affect the whole course of history, 
 that an unknown writer had such an inspiration of the 
 needs of the world and such a vision of Israel's mission, 
 that the book known to us as "The Prophecy of Jonah" 
 was given to the world. 
 
 That Israel should have returned from its bitter experi- 
 ence filled with horror at the wickedness of the world is 
 not strange; that men filled with the spirit of the Puritan, 
 as were Ezra and Nehemiah, should feel that the safety of 
 the chosen people depended upon their isolation, we can 
 well understand. But it was not alone the people who 
 had held them in captivity whose influence they dreaded; 
 there were people near at hand whom they despised and 
 hated. The Samaritans had played an unworthy part on 
 
 * Higher criticism is a name we owe to the Germans. It has aroused 
 the resentment of the ignorant because it seems to imply a certain 
 superiority on the part of the critic. But it refers only to the subject 
 of critical study. The study of the text was called the "lower" criti- 
 cism, and the study of the book as a whole — its authorship, the time 
 when it was written, and the object of the writer — was called the 
 "higher" criticism. Certainly a harmless distinction ! But how much 
 bitterness and ignorant zeal might have been spared if by chance the 
 one had been called the "textual" and the other the "literary" exam- 
 ination of Scriptures ! 
 
INTRODUCTION xv 
 
 the return of their brethren and sown the seeds of that 
 contempt which was all the more bitter because the rival 
 religion aped the manners of the true worshippers of 
 Jehovah. 
 
 But there was one servant of God who saw that this 
 spirit must lead to the destruction of Israel, and that the 
 true meaning of the experience of the exile was to be found 
 by those who had learned that in "every nation he that 
 reverences and serves God is accepted by him." Our 
 writer was not the only one to learn this great truth. The 
 unknown prophet, whom we call Isaiah, had had a vision 
 of a God of the whole earth. Malachi was about to say 
 — ^not as we read it in the authorized version, but — "From 
 the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the 
 same, my name is great among the heathen, and in every 
 place incense is being offered unto my name, even a pure 
 offering, for my name is now great among the heathen, 
 saith the Lord of Hosts." How was Israel, hard and bit- 
 ter and seK-satisfied, to be made to feel that its true mis- 
 sion was to make known the way of the Lord among all 
 people? How was the religion of Israel to be changed 
 from a racial to a universal religion? How was the world 
 to be evangelized ? The writer, like a still Greater Prophet, 
 turned from the language of the schools and used the 
 parable. He wrote an allegory which has endured through 
 all these centuries and will again influence the world when 
 men learn that it is a parable and not a history. 
 
 If Israel rested content with the revelation co the fathers 
 and felt no responsibility for the world, it would surely 
 perish. This was his message, and the Book of Jonah was 
 the form it took. The writer took for his hero the prophet 
 Jonah. Why he chose this little-known figure will be evi- 
 dent to all who take the trouble to make themselves familiar 
 with not alone the history of Israel as it is recorded in the 
 Scriptures but also with the traditions which have lin- 
 gered to our day. Jonah was a great national hero. Tra- 
 
xvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 dition* said that he was the " child '^ whom the prophet 
 Elijah, at the time of the great famine, raised to life. He, 
 said the popular story, was the umiamed "servant" who 
 fled with Elijah as far as Beersheba, when the wrath of 
 Jezebel sought the prophet's life. He was the "messen- 
 ger" whom Elisha sent to anoint Jehu king, which led to 
 the revolution and the downfall of the dynasty of Ahab. 
 He, thought our author, was a fitting hero for the parable 
 which he hoped might change the course of Hebrew history. 
 
 But there was a deeper reason still why Jonah should 
 have been the hero of the tale; it was necessary for the 
 dramatic construction of the story that the hero should 
 represent a theology which Israel had long outgrown. 
 Every student of the Bible knows that Israel at the begin- 
 ning conceived of God as a tribal God, whose name was 
 Jehovah. This God dwelt on Mount Sinai. Thither 
 Moses went to receive the Tables of Stone. To this same 
 mountain Elijah went to renew his faith in the God of 
 Israel. Great as was the power of Jehovah, it was con- 
 fined to the Promised Land. His writs did not run in 
 Moab or in Philistia. It was not until the days of the 
 great prophets that God began to be thought of as the 
 God of the whole earth. 
 
 The primiti^^e theology had been outgrown through the 
 influence of the great prophets and the experiences in the 
 captivity. Yet, if the story was to have verisimilitude, it 
 required for its hero one who still held to the old theology. 
 For — and here lies the irony of the writer — ^it was not to 
 be supposed that one who believed that he who is the God 
 of the whole earth could be content to have his true wor- 
 shippers indifferent to that larger world in which he dwelt ! 
 If God be the God of the whole earth, and Israel acts as if 
 it had no duty outside the Promised Land, what would be 
 the fate of Israel? This is what the story of Jonah sets 
 out to tell. It was because Jonah did not believe that God 
 
 * See Stanley's "History of the Jewish Church," lecture XXXIII. 
 
INTRODUCTION xvii 
 
 was the God of the whole earth, but only of the sacred 
 land of Israel, that when the unwelcome word of the Lord 
 came to him, saying, "Arise, go to Nineveh," "he rose up 
 to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord." 
 
 Thus far there is nothing in the allegory which seems 
 inconsistent with human experience. But now follows the 
 story which is not only incredible but, to the modern 
 mind, grotesque. Therefore, many a reader closes the 
 story at this point and will read no more, and so one of the 
 most instructive and dramatic books of the Old Testa- 
 ment is closed to him. Yet, I venture to think, the great 
 lesson of the allegory was never more needed than to-day. 
 
 Why did the prophet insert such a grotesque incident 
 into his story? Why could not the Greek dolphin have 
 served his purpose? Of course the first answer is that he 
 never dreamed that his parable would be read by any save 
 his contemporaries! He could not foresee that a day 
 would come when the reverence of a people for his writing 
 would be so great that they would suppose that he was 
 writing history and would expect them to accept his fan- 
 tastic tale as if it were the truth of a veritable voyage on 
 the Mediterranean Sea! Yet that is what has come to 
 pass. 
 
 But the story was not written for Christians, nor for 
 Greeks nor for Americans — full of imagination, indeed, yet 
 singularly lacking in the poetic sense. We are essentially 
 prosaic in our most religious moods. The book was writ- 
 ten for the contemporaries of the prophet, as we have said, 
 for men whose fathers had known what it meant for a 
 whole nation to be engulfed in the tidal wave of the Baby- 
 Ionian invasion. The hero of the story had not shared 
 this experience, for he lived before the rise of Babylon as a 
 world-power. He belonged to the Northern kingdom on 
 which the Assyrian "had come down like a wolf on the 
 fold." It was Nineveh which had destroyed the people of 
 God, because they had failed to preach to it the righteous- 
 
xviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 ness of God which had been revealed to them. What fig- 
 ure should he use to represent the awful fate of the North- 
 ern kingdom? The prophet Jeremiah had spoken of 
 Nebuchadnezzar as a dragon; he had said, speaking of the 
 fall of Judea: "The king of Babylon hath devoured me 
 ... he hath swallowed me up like a dragon ... he hath 
 cast me out." 
 
 This, I guess, is the seed from which our writer's story 
 grew. Indeed, it would be more appropriate as applied to 
 Nineveh than to Babylon, for the word Nineveh comes 
 from the root Nish, which means fish. This was the great 
 fish that swallowed Israel. The people who first read this 
 story had the key to the parable which we have lost. They 
 knew that the experience of Jonah was a parable of the 
 experience of both Israel and Judea. The great monster 
 empires of the ancient world had swallowed the people of 
 God because they had fled from his presence. And now, 
 by the mercy of God, the monster had cast them forth 
 and they were given a new opportunity to serve God by 
 preaching his righteousness to the world. Would they 
 obey the voice of God, or would they refuse? This was 
 the question the writer had in mind to bring before his 
 people. 
 
 It is an old story, but it is one which has a meaning for 
 the churches to-day. Indeed, I believe that it is the one 
 question to which an answer must be found if the church 
 is not to meet the fate of Judaism. We have had a solemn 
 warning. Men are saying: "Why did not the church save 
 the world from the desolating war which threatened to de- 
 stroy the civilization of the world?" It is a question to 
 which an answer must be given, and it ought not to be 
 difficult to find the answer. The churches were impotent 
 because they had not used their influence to convert the 
 world. They were content to rest in such a modification 
 of the individual and family life as they had accomplished. 
 But that the spiritualization of the industrial and political 
 
INTRODUCTION xix 
 
 life of the nations and the relation of the nations to one 
 another were also the task of the church was far from their 
 thought. The churches allied to the state were bound to 
 speak the things which the state demanded. The Ameri- 
 can churches, free from the control of the state, might have 
 had a message to the world, but they were satisfied with 
 influencing the individual and were exhausting their ener- 
 gies in sectarian propaganda, and would long ago have 
 perished had it not been that the Christian spirit was kept 
 alive by missions to the heathen. Who can doubt that 
 had the Christian world shown to Japan an example of 
 Christian brotherhood, the whole course of the world might 
 have been changed? If all the Christian men and women 
 in the world could have united their energies, there can be 
 no doubt that the war could have been prevented. I do 
 not mean by some sudden effort in the year 19 14. That 
 was too late. But if after the Reformation all the Re- 
 formed churches had determined that they would no longer 
 be dominated by the spirit of the world, as they deter- 
 mined they would no longer be dominated by the papacy, 
 there can be no doubt that the world would be a different 
 place from what it is to-day. 
 
 But the church has been impotent because it lost the 
 meaning of the kingdom of God and identified salvation 
 with individual escape from the torture of a hell which is 
 to be experienced after death, and supposed that the im- 
 portant work for each church was to propagate its own 
 peculiar doctrines. Because of this the Protestant churches 
 have been impotent to influence the world except to a 
 small degree. 
 
 The churches have been like the hero of our story. 
 They have fled from the presence of the Lord. That is, 
 they have not acted as if they believed that the Lord is 
 present in the affairs of the world but is confined to the 
 sacred soil of the ecclesiastical life. As a result of this 
 heresy the churches have been swallowed by the world. 
 
XX INTRODUCTION 
 
 There is a passage in a recent book by Santayana which 
 deserves our serious consideration. The liberal, on read- 
 ing this passage, will, I think, be justified in saying that 
 the author is confused as to the true meaning of "author- 
 ity," and will not be prepared to admit that the picture 
 which he draws of the Protestant churches in the nine- 
 teenth century is a complete portrait of Christian life in 
 America at <that time. Nevertheless, if we read the pas- 
 sage with serious hearts, I think we shall be compelled to 
 admit that the churches had substituted efficiency for 
 holiness, and as a result had been dominated by the spirit 
 of the world. "The Churches, a little ashamed of their 
 past, began to court the good opinion of so excellent a 
 world. . . . They were far, very far, from . . . preach- 
 ing contempt for it. . . . Irreligion, dissoluteness, and 
 pessimism — supposed naturally to go together — could 
 never prosper; they were incompatible with efficiency. 
 That was the supreme test. *Be Christians,' I once heard 
 
 a president of College cry to his assembled pupils, 
 
 'be Christians and you will be successful.' Religion was 
 indispensable and sacred, when not carried too far; but 
 theology might well be unnecessary. Why distract this 
 world with talk of another? Enough for the day was the 
 good thereof. Religion should be disentangled as much as 
 possible from history and authority and metaphysics, and 
 made to rest honestly on one's fine feelings, on one's indom- 
 itable optimism and trust in life."* 
 
 The churches have been swallowed by the world and 
 now, by the mercy of God, after the dreadful experience, 
 are given, as the prophet was, a new opportunity to re- 
 deem themselves. These are the conditions which con- 
 stitute what we have called the crisis of the churches, and 
 I venture to suggest that the churches to-day are in the 
 same position as was Jonah after his deliverance from the 
 perils of the great deep. The experience of Jonah in the 
 
 * "Character and Opinion in the United States," George Santayana. 
 
INTRODUCTION xxi 
 
 maw of the great fish is the first act in our drama. But 
 the deeper and permanent value is found in the tragedy 
 which follows. 
 
 The mercy of God, which gave to the rebellious prophet 
 another opportunity after his first failure, may be said to 
 have been shown also to us. The churches certainly failed 
 in meeting the crisis which culminated in the Great War, 
 but there is still work for them to do, and, having been 
 delivered after the first failure, there is now opening before 
 them a new opportunity. They may now redeem them- 
 selves, or, like this unhappy servant of Jehovah, fail again; 
 but if they do, they will repeat the tragedy of the Jewish 
 Church. This is the warning of the second part of our 
 parable. 
 
 Jonah went to Nineveh because he dared not again 
 refuse. He delivered the message, and the result was far 
 dijfferent from what he had expected. He had hoped that 
 an immediate destruction would follow his preaching. 
 But behold, the city heard and hearkened. He sat on the 
 mound outside the city and waited for the fire from heaven 
 to fall. He heard the sound of mourning, he saw the 
 beasts led from the field to take part in the expiation. 
 And he gloried in the thought that it was too late.* 
 
 I do not think it unjust to say that this represented the 
 feeling of many who call themselves Christians as they 
 contemplated the possibility of the resurrection of Ger- 
 many from the grave of the Hohenzollems. We have 
 heard not a few say that they wished the war had con- 
 tinued till the invading armies had done in Germany all 
 that the Germans had done in Belgium. 
 
 It may be said that one essential element has been over- 
 looked: "The people of Nineveh repented. If the Ger- 
 mans had repented, we should have been the first to for- 
 give them." I believe that those who speak thus are 
 deceiving themselves. They "would forgive if repentance 
 * See Stanley's lectures on the Jewish Church. 
 
xxii INTRODUCTION 
 
 were evident"? Possibly. But they would have been 
 sorry to have repentance precede suffering! The man 
 who wrote the Book of Jonah knew the human heart better 
 than many a man who knows much of which the ancient 
 writer was ignorant. When he depicted Jonah sitting in 
 sullen expectation for the destruction of the city, grieving 
 at the sound of repentance, he was doing what many a 
 man who calls himself a Christian is doing to-day. Each 
 is interested, not in the salvation of life, but in the fulfil- 
 ment of his own prophecy ! 
 
 Again, I would call attention to the artistry of the 
 story. The writer has followed the path of human experi- 
 ence as faithfully as the broad feet of Bunyan trod the 
 well-known paths of England. Jonah is a modem figure 
 — ^because he is the revelation of the human heart. 
 
 Waiting for destruction to fall on those we hate is a 
 wearisome business. Jonah found it so. He knew the 
 evil the great Assyrian Empire had brought upon the 
 world, the blood it had shed, the tears it had caused to 
 flow, the homes it had broken up, and so the cries that 
 went up from the king on his throne and the peasant in 
 the field were as music in his ears. Yet the destruction 
 tarried. At last it is borne in upon him that his prophecy 
 has failed. God is to be merciful to those who deserved 
 no mercy. Meanwhile the hot Assyrian sun beats down 
 upon his unprotected head and he is full of misery. 
 
 The Hebrew knew nothing of what we call secondary 
 causes. Whatever happened was the direct action of God. 
 As God had prepared the great wind and the great fish, so 
 now it is God who causes a miraculous gourd to spring up 
 and Jonah is comforted by its refreshing shade. In his 
 secure retreat he again waits for the fulfihnent of the 
 prophecy which he had feared was to fail. But at last 
 there can be no further ground for hope. The sounds of 
 mourning have turned into hymns of joy, and he is com- 
 pelled to admit that the wicked city is to escape the doom 
 
INTRODUCTION xxiii 
 
 it merited. And in bitterness of heart he lies down to 
 sleep. A^d now God sends a worm which gnaws the root 
 of the gourd and the hot wind of the desert blows upon it 
 and it withers away. And Jonah is filled with anger 
 against God. Then the voice of God comes to him, as it 
 had come to his master Elijah on Horeb, saying: "Dost 
 thou well to be angry for the gourd?" And he answers in 
 the bitterness of his soul: "I do well to be angry even unto 
 death." 
 
 To some this seems an impotent conclusion. '*What 
 next?" they say. But it is the proper ending of a great 
 tragedy. As in Hamlet, "the rest is silence." But the 
 meaning is clear. This is the end of the prophetic spirit 
 which loves its own shelter more than the "six score thou- 
 sand persons that cannot discern between their right hand 
 and their left hand; and also much cattle." "But who 
 are such?" it may be asked. They are the religious sec- 
 tarians, all who identify the goodness of God with the lit- 
 tle system which they have found helpful and comforting. 
 It may be a great church which numbers its millions in 
 many lands, or it may be a little sect of only a few score. 
 But the important matter is not which particular body it 
 seems to us is most to be condemned for this spirit; the 
 important thing to remember is that it is a spirit from 
 which none of the churches is entirely free. I do not in- 
 tend to imply that there is conscious hatred on the part 
 of one church to another, but only that the logic of their 
 theory leads to a scepticism of God's goodness outside the 
 company to which they belong. 
 
 No doubt the story has its lesson for the individual, but 
 it is primarily a parable of the church. It was addressed 
 to the Jewish Church, which had been swallowed up by the 
 great dragons of the Assyrian and Babylonian Empires, 
 but, by the mercy of God, had now been cast forth. A 
 new opportunity had been given to do the will of God in 
 making his way known among the Gentiles, but instead 
 
xxiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 of that the Jews were filled with bitterness as they learned 
 that God was interested in the heathen and that his mercy 
 was "wider than the wideness of the sea." Their feeling 
 hardened into the Pharisaism which at last slew a Greater 
 than Jonah, because he told them that the Good Samari- 
 tan, however faulty his theology, was nearer to God than 
 the orthodox priest and Levite. 
 
 Yet this tragedy of Israel might have been averted had 
 the priests listened to one who was more like Jesus in his 
 spirit than even the "greater" prophets. His word needed 
 no scribe to interpret it. It was as plain as the word of 
 Jesus. "You are looking," Jesus said, "only to the past. 
 You forget the present and have no eyes for the future. 
 You are on the threshold of a great revelation — ^just as 
 Jonah was — and if you fail to see the signs of the times 
 and to do the work to which God has called you, your 
 church and nation, which have been your joy and com- 
 fort, will be destroyed as was the gourd of Jonah, and your 
 end, like his, will be full of bitterness." And it was so. 
 The Book of Jonah is the prophecy of the fall of Israel — 
 the foretelling of the fate of the church of God ! 
 
 If that be all the book has to tell us, it can have only an 
 historical interest. And that, after all, has small value if 
 it does not teach us how best to meet the problems of our 
 own day. If, however, this same spirit against which our 
 parable is a protest was carried over into the early Chris- 
 tian church, we may find that it has persisted longer than 
 we should at first sight be inclined to think. We have 
 only to open the New Testament at random to find how 
 persistent this spirit has been. 
 
 When the disciples had learned what Jesus had done for 
 them, it was inevitable that they should be tempted to 
 look with suspicion, if not with contempt, on those who 
 had failed to see his glory. Thus we are told that on one 
 occasion they came to Jesus and complacently remarked 
 that they had seen others "casting out devils in his name. 
 
INTRODUCTION xxv 
 
 but because they followed not us, we forbade them." 
 They were evidently astonished that this exclusive spirit 
 did not meet with Jesus' approval. Later still, when the 
 disciples were left without the guidance of the Master's 
 presence, they followed the tradition of their fathers and 
 looked with contempt on the Gentiles, as "common and 
 unclean." If the account in the Acts is a true representa- 
 tion of history and not, as some have supposed, an attempt 
 to harmonize the differences which came near disrupting 
 the church, then it was to Peter the church was indebted 
 for the first attempt to rise to a higher plane and recognize 
 that God's mercy is as wide as humanity itself. However 
 that may be, it is evident that early in the history of the 
 church the same crisis as that which Jonah had failed to 
 meet was presented to the disciples. It was Paul who 
 finally won the victory — over Peter, the Prince of the 
 Church. Even if Peter had begun well, he was unable to 
 continue in his well-doing. Now the rock the apostolic 
 church came near breaking upon, no age of the church has 
 quite escaped. In every age there has been a crisis, and 
 the church has been called upon to decide whether its 
 "gourd" was more valuable than humanity itself. 
 
 This is the danger which the churches of our day are 
 called upon to meet. For our church — and it makes no 
 difference by what name we call it — ^is for each of us the 
 "gourd" which protects us and is our comfort. He must 
 indeed be a thankless soul who is not grateful for what it 
 laas done for him. Its dogmas protect from the direct 
 rays of the sun of truth which we are unable to bear. Its 
 encircling walls shield from the hot wind of the world. 
 We are grateful for it. We thank God that we are in it. 
 But, through its open door, we look upon the great world 
 and say to ourselves: "Can God be interested in that great 
 world as he is in us ? Can there be anything in this wicked 
 world that is pleasing to God?" Not unnaturally, in our 
 indignation at wickedness and our joy of the tabernacle, 
 
xxvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 we are tempted to say: ''No. All those who are outside 
 the shelter of this protecting leaf are outside the mercy of 
 God. If they would know of the goodness of the Lord, 
 they must enter into our habitation. Till they do that 
 God can have nothing to do with them, because they have 
 nothing to do with him." That, I believe, is the danger 
 of the whole church. 
 
 We look at the heathen world and cannot deny that 
 there is much in it that is admirable. There are rules of 
 morality that we should do well to know and obey. There 
 is a simplicity and gentleness in the relation of man to 
 man which put to shame our civilized struggle for exist- 
 ence. Then, nearer at home, we find that some of those 
 whose. lives are the most earnest and the sweetest are far 
 from the communion of any of the churches. We recog- 
 nize that year by year the boys and girls, trained in our 
 Sunday-schools, come home from school and college hav- 
 ing lost all interest in the church. It would seem as if the 
 result must be fatal to a worthy life, but, as a matter of 
 fact, many of them, as teachers and doctors and social 
 workers, are an example to us all. What are we to say to 
 these things? Have we been mistaken in supposing that 
 the church has helped us? Is it possible that it has fin- 
 ished its work, and that henceforth the great institution 
 which converted the Roman Empire and brought the bar- 
 barian invaders of Europe to the discipleship of Christ is 
 about to disappear? And if so, what is to take its place? 
 While it is well for us to consider the facts, we cannot rest 
 content with such a suggestion. 
 
 What the churches must learn to-day is that the spirit 
 of Jesus is not confined to the organization. There are 
 multitudes of earnest men and women who have lost all 
 interest in the church but are following Jesus — many of 
 them ignorant of the fact that it is he who is their com- 
 panion. ''Did not our hearts bum within us while he 
 talked with us on the way?'* They do not know all that 
 
INTRODUCTION xxvii 
 
 they might know of him, but they are living in his spirit of 
 sacrifice. One is teaching, and another is healing, and a 
 third is leaving father and mother and devoting the 
 strength of life to making the conditions of life easier and 
 nobler for the poor. They ignore the churches and the 
 churches ignore them. Thus both are losing what each 
 through co-operation might learn. 
 
 The facts of the spiritual life are before us. They are 
 manifest in the lives of the heathen; they are evident in 
 the conversation of those who have no association with 
 the churches; and above all, they are to be seen in the 
 lives of those who are members of every one of the churches. 
 These are facts. But too often the ecclesiastical mind pre- 
 fers to begin with a theory and say: "No church which has 
 not a 'valid' ministry, or which has abandoned the primi- 
 tive form of administering baptism, or is unable to point 
 to the exact day and hour when its members were con- 
 verted, can have the spirit of Christ." Of course, then 
 there can be no end to the controversy. 
 
 Now, all Christians do believe that the fruits of the 
 spirit can be found only where Christ is present; all are 
 ready to say, "If any man have not the spirit of Christ, 
 he is none of his"; but too often the corollary that "If any 
 man have the spirit of Christ he is his" is overlooked. 
 St. Paul, who was a great expert in the human soul, says: 
 "The fruits of the spirit are manifest, which are these, 
 love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness. 
 Against such there is no law." May we not add: "Against 
 such there is no argument"? 
 
 If these be the facts — and they cannot be controverted 
 — ^might it not be well for us to ask ourselves, not what is 
 the theory to which we are bound, but what are the facts 
 of life, and what is our duty in relation to them? It used 
 to be said by some good men that the people outside the 
 communion of the church to which they belonged were 
 outside the "covenanted mercies of God." They did not 
 
xxviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 ask themselves what those words meant; they simply used 
 a formula which explains nothing. That time has now 
 gone by, but we are not clear as to what we ought to say 
 and do. It is that confusion which is one of the causes of 
 the impotence of the churches. 
 
 I venture to suggest that what we ought to say to our- 
 selves is that we are thinking of our churches as Jonah 
 thought of his gourd. It has been our refuge and protec- 
 tion, but all along God has been providing other refuges for 
 those who are not under the shadow of our "gourd." For, 
 if we do not say that willingly, we may be driven to it by 
 bitter experience, and though we escape the anger which 
 poisoned the heart of the prophet, we shall continue to be 
 perplexed until we begin to doubt if there be any refuge 
 for the soul of man. 
 
 There is another fact which has been impressed upon us 
 by the experience of recent years, and that is that the 
 wind of the world is blowing upon our "gourd'* and the 
 worm of criticism is gnawing at its root. These considera- 
 tions should lead us to ask if our experience may not be 
 the same as Jonah's? It may be that God will destroy 
 our refuge if we do not use it for the good of mankind in- 
 stead of as a refuge for ourselves. Not a few are deeply 
 concerned; they see that their church is not to their chil- 
 dren what it has been to them, and they are filled with 
 despair and believe the evil is in their children instead of 
 in themselves. They do not, indeed, say with the prophet, 
 "I do well to be angry even unto death," but failing to see 
 the signs of the times, they have no great expectation of 
 better things. They cannot believe that 
 
 "Our little systems have their day, 
 
 They have their day and cease to be, 
 
 And thou, God, art more than they." 
 
 To admit that God fulfils himself in many ways seems 
 equivalent to saying that he never has fulfilled himself in 
 
INTRODUCTION xxix 
 
 any way. It seems to them that there can be but one 
 way of God's manifestation of the truth, even that way 
 which is consonant with a theory which they had learned 
 to identify with revelation itself. Some, like the great 
 Cardinal Newman, or like a recent learned and good 
 bishop of the Episcopal Church, believing that their own 
 "gourd," which had been their comfort and protection, is 
 about to wither away, seek for another "gourd" whose 
 roots, they think, strike deeper and whose branches evi- 
 dently spread wider, and there, they think, they shall be 
 at peace. It may be so; but it will be because they are 
 able to rest in something less than the revelation of God's 
 goodness in their own day. Others, like Newman's brother, 
 or like Samuel Butler, finding the church, as it had been 
 represented to them, to be no dwelling-place for the grow- 
 ing soul, turn from all the churches with disgust and mock 
 at those who do not follow them. 
 
 This ancient parable has a word to us to-day. It would 
 tell us that we too are on the eve of a great revelation — 
 the revelation of the goodness of God throughout the 
 whole earth, and that the duty of the church is to bear wit- 
 ness to that truth by which alone the world can be saved. 
 
 No doubt there are good men and women who will say: 
 "Supposing this to be true, what is the conclusion of the 
 whole matter? If this exposition of the parable of Jonah 
 be true, then it follows that there is no real difference be- 
 tween heathendom and Christendom, between those who 
 know Jesus as their Saviour and those who know him not; 
 no difference between the church which has held to the 
 ancient order and preserved the faith once delivered to the 
 saints and a sect which has sprung up like a mushroom 
 and has no root that will abide. All that will be left is an 
 invertebrate religious sentimentality, without law or order 
 or definite teaching — that is, without authority." 
 
 Before considering these objections in detail, would it 
 not be well to ask ourselves whether the interpretation of 
 
XXX INTRODUCTION 
 
 the parable here given is or is not in accordance with the 
 mind of Christ? One has only to open the gospels to see. 
 When the religious teachers of the day gathered about 
 Jesus and saw the mighty works which he did, they could 
 not deny the facts. Therefore they advanced a theory; 
 they said: "He does these things by the power of Beelze- 
 bub." But Jesus said: "To attribute any good work to 
 any agency save the spirit of God is to be in danger of the 
 sin against the Holy Ghost." If the facts would not fit 
 their theory, and they did not, then the theory must be 
 changed. Theory is man's interpretation of fact. It is 
 necessarily fallible, but facts are the immutable acts of 
 God. If the fruits of the spirit manifested in all the 
 churches are not the result of the presence of God, then 
 no one of us has valid ground for his belief that he himself 
 is in communion with God. 
 
 There are multitudes of Christians who do not face the 
 facts of spiritual experience, and therefore do not feel the 
 force of this inexorable logic. They hold tenaciously to 
 theories which they have inherited, and while they do not 
 go so far, ;at least in the Protestant churches, as to deny 
 that God's mercy is being manifested in other churches than 
 their own, they are suspicious, unsympathetic, and some- 
 times even contemptuous of those who do not follow them. 
 Is not this a modem form of the sin against the Holy Ghost? 
 If the facts were faced, might not the spiritual unity which 
 all good men declare they desire be found by following a 
 new path? It is to indicate the new way of Christian 
 unity that this book has been written. 
 

 CHAPTER I' '• '" * ' " 
 THE CRISIS OF CIVILIZATION 
 
 The crisis of the world may be thought of as political, 
 economic, or social. But, however we look at it, it is so 
 dreadful that not a few serious-minded men are asking 
 themselves if Western civilization is about to fail. To 
 some this may seem a futile, foolish, perhaps morbid ques- 
 tion. But when we recall what history has taught us — 
 that civilizations great and wonderful have passed away 
 and left almost no record — why should we conclude that 
 the present civilization which we think so glorious should 
 be immortal? The story of the decline and fall of the 
 Roman Empire is one of the classics of English literature, 
 and is no doubt familiar to all. It may not, however, be 
 out of place to recall certain of the salient facts which 
 ought to impress the student of the present history of the 
 world. These are the causes which, it is generally ad- 
 mitted, led to the decay of the splendor of Rome: first, in- 
 creasing luxury, which sapped the Stoic virtues. Second, 
 the prevalence of divorce, which undermined the family. 
 Every student of Plutarch knows that the family was the 
 noblest product of Roman civilization. Indeed, we may 
 say that it was like the Trojan Palladium; when it fell, the 
 fall of the city was inevitable. Third, taxation, so heavy 
 that industry was throttled and men, in despair, declared 
 that it was not worth while to save. Fourth, the civil 
 wars, which cut down the flower of Roman manhood. 
 Fifth, the dilution of citizenship by the inclusion of slaves 
 and barbarians, who felt no thrill of glory when the story 
 of the Eternal City was sung. 
 
 These are the facts which impressed the mind of Gibbon, 
 but there were deeper reasons tiian this observant historian 
 
2 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 ■ p<*^j?ceived. Frbvide has sunk the probe of criticism deeper 
 « , into the wounds of the empire. "It was an age of mate- 
 ""'^ rial progress sPii material civilization; an age of civil lib- 
 erty and intellectual culture; an age of pamphlets and epi- 
 grams, of salons and of dinner-parties, of senatorial majori- 
 ties and electoral corruption. The highest ofi&ces of the 
 state were open in theory to the meanest citizen; they were 
 confined, in fact, to those who had the longest purses, or 
 the most ready use of the tongue on popular platforms. 
 . . . The struggles between plebeians and patricians for 
 equality of privilege were over, and a new division had 
 been formed between the party of property and a party 
 who desired a change in the structure of society. . . . 
 The rich were extravagant, for life had ceased to have 
 practical interest, except for its material pleasures; the 
 occupation of the higher classes was to obtain money with- 
 out labor, and to spend it in idle enjoyment. Patriotism 
 survived on the lips, but patriotism meant the ascendency 
 of the party which would maintain the existing order of 
 things, or would overthrow it for a more equal distribu- 
 tion of the good things which alone were valued. Reli- 
 gion, once the foundation of the laws and rules of per- 
 sonal conduct, had subsided into opinion. The educated, 
 in their hearts, disbelieved it. Temples were still built 
 with increasing splendor; the established forms were scru- 
 pulously observed. Public men spoke conventionally of 
 Providence, that they might throw on their opponents the 
 odiimi of impiety; but of genuine belief that life had any 
 serious meaning, there was none remaining beyond the 
 circle of the silent, patient, ignorant multitude. . . . The 
 Romans ceased to believe, and in losing their faith they 
 became as steel becomes when it is demagnetized: the 
 spiritual quality was gone out of them, and the high society 
 of Rome itself became a society of powerful animals with 
 an enormous appetite for pleasure. Wealth poured in 
 more and more, and luxury grew more unbounded. Pal- 
 
THE CRISIS OF CIVILIZATION 3 
 
 aces sprang up in the city, castles in the country, villas at 
 pleasant places by the sea, and parks, and fish-pounds, 
 and game preserves, and gardens, and vast retinues of 
 servants. When natural pleasures had been indulged in 
 to satiety, pleasures which were against nature were im- 
 ported from the East to stimulate the exhausted appetite. 
 To make money — money by any means, lawful or unlaw- 
 ful — became the universal passion." * 
 
 Are the like signs — vulgarizing luxury, divorce leading 
 to the dissolution of the family, taxation blocking the 
 wheels of industry, destruction of yoimg, vigorous, prom- 
 ising life by the slaughter of war, a lowering of the stand- 
 ard of citizenship by the inclusion of the ignorant, the im- 
 becile, and the vicious in the electorate, the rule of the 
 "boss" in our state and municipal politics, the love of 
 money, and the loss of faith — characteristic of our day 
 and land? If they be, what shall we say of them? 
 Whether we say, as some do, that they are merely super- 
 ficial, or believe, as many thoughtful men and women do 
 believe, that they are symptoms of a deep-seated disease, 
 he, I think, must be a heedless man who does not admit 
 that there is at least danger that our civilization may 
 perish as other civilizations have perished, although to the 
 men of old such a thing seemed as impossible as it does 
 to the careless to-day. "They were eating and drinking, 
 marrying and giving in marriage, and the flood came." 
 
 *See "Caesar, a Sketch," James Anthony Froude, pp. 6-7, 18-19. 
 Ferrero, in "The Ruin of Ancient Civilization and the Triumph of 
 Christianity," says that while the facts above named are to be counted 
 causes of the fall of Rome, the fundamental cause was a spiritual one 
 — the loss of authority — and believes that the present crisis of the 
 world is due to the same cause. 
 
 Undoubtedly there is truth in this, but all that it seems to prove is 
 that the various external authorities in which the world has tried to 
 rest have been found inadequate. The peace of the world cannot be 
 gained through the re-establishment of any of those discredited authori- 
 ties; a more august authority must be found, the authority of the spirit 
 speaking through the universal conscience of Christian men. See "The 
 Seat of Authority in Religion," James Martineau, pp. 67-68. 
 
4 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 There are not a few thoughtful men who will say: "While 
 of course there is danger, there is no cause for panic. The 
 times at present are out of joint, but there will be time for 
 the restoration of the world as it was ten years ago, and 
 then it will be found that things will go on much as they 
 did before. We do not deny that many present facts are 
 disquieting, but the dark picture drawn by those who re- 
 call the fate of Rome is not justified. There are founda- 
 tions of modem civilization which have been laid since the 
 fall of Rome, and on these our civilization firmly rests." 
 
 When we inquire what these foundations are, we are 
 told that first of all there is "capital." "The fluidity of 
 capital is a comparatively modem discovery. The great 
 wealth accumulated after a century of intensive industrial- 
 ism, and the fluidity of capital, which flows from one part 
 of the world to another by a law as sure as that which 
 regulates the winds, something which Rome never knew, 
 is a sure foundation on which Westem civilization is built. 
 It cannot fall while that rock remains." This may be 
 tme, but when we hear, not alarmists, but serious-minded 
 men in England to-day asking if it be not possible that 
 England shall be bankmpt, it should give us pause. If it 
 should come to pass that England, for mere self-preserva- 
 tion, should be obliged to repudiate her great debt— and 
 that, as I say, is seriously feared by some to-day — who 
 does not know that France must follow, and Italy follow 
 France? In such case, the fluidity of capital, which we 
 thought was our safeguard, may prove to be a liability 
 rather than an asset. It has been a witness to the inter- 
 locking of all national interests; but if one were to fail, 
 they woidd all go down like a row of card houses. Then 
 what becomes of our capital? Wealth is not bullion; it is 
 credit. If credit be shaken, then the foundation will be 
 shaken. Europe will fail. "But," it may be said, "Amer- 
 ica would remain." For how long? With our best cus- 
 tomers ruined, with repudiation of the great debts owed to 
 
THE CRISIS OF CIVILIZATION 5 
 
 this country, and with the same poison working in this 
 country which destroyed Europe, how long could America 
 stand alone as the guardian of Western civilization? 
 
 It may be said: "This is but a part of the story. All 
 that has been suggested might happen, and still we should 
 not be ruined even if we were temporarily embarrassed. 
 There are immense riches in this land which have not yet 
 been brought to the surface and placed in the hands of 
 man.'' I do not know how great those riches are, nor 
 does any one. It is quite possible that we have over- 
 estimated the amount of coal and iron and oil upon which 
 the industrial life of the nation is dependent. But how- 
 ever that may be, it must be remembered that we have 
 been thinking of latent, not actual, wealth, and that latent, 
 to become actual, wealth requires unflagging industry. 
 But Russia has shown us the possibility of a great people 
 either refusing or being unable to work, and in conse- 
 quence sinking into appalling poverty in a few years. 
 Now if England, France, and Italy were bankrupt, and 
 Russia were unable or refused to work, and Germany de- 
 cided that it was unprofitable to work for the benefit of 
 her conquerors, where would be our wealth, which we sup- 
 posed would support us until the world could be restored 
 to its ancient glory? Again we may turn eyes of hope to 
 America. But if the working men — ^mechanics and farm- 
 ers — are convinced that they are not receiving a fair share 
 of the result of combined capital and labor — and that they 
 are so convinced there can be little doubt — we may antici- 
 pate an industrial revolution in this land which will at 
 least temporarily paralyze our industrial activities and still 
 further reduce our accumulated wealth. 
 
 But the optimist will not easily let us go. Such an 
 experienced statesman and interesting philosopher as Mr. 
 Arthur Balfour has lately called attention to the fact that 
 in all these discussions of the fate of the Roman Empire, 
 "science" has been overlooked. It is this, he says, that 
 
6 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 differentiates our days from those which preceded the in- 
 cursion of the barbarians. It might seem impertinent to 
 differ from such a distinguished man, but I think even the 
 most modest of us would be justified in saying that this 
 sounds more like the optimism of the nineteenth century 
 when it was expected that science was about to bring in 
 the millenniima without effort on the part of man, than the 
 realism of the twentieth century with which we are now 
 called upon to deal. For great as have been the blessings 
 of science — ^in the hand of the physician it has soothed 
 pain, it has made the crooked straight, it has prolonged the 
 span of human life, it has enlarged our mental horizon and 
 shown the "rock from which man was hewn and the pit 
 from which he was digged" — what has it been in the hands 
 of the "men who delight in war"? What in the hands 
 of those — the social maniacs — whom we call anarchists? 
 What salvation did it bring to Germany, "princess among 
 the nations " ? Is science a blessing ? It depends upon the 
 character of the men who handle it. But it can be con- 
 fined to no class or no character. Indirectly it may do a 
 work which was not to have been expected. The romance 
 of war arose in the days when war consisted in the meeting 
 face to face of two enemies, and courage, strength, and 
 skill determined the issue. But every historian of the 
 Middle Ages has called attention to the great revolution 
 brought about by the invention of gunpowder, which placed 
 the peasant on a level with the mailed warrior. Wliat is 
 that compared with the revolution which this generation 
 has seen? Where is the romance of being blown to pieces 
 by a shell cast into the air by an adversary miles from the 
 seat of battle? I talked not long ago with a man in a 
 convalescent home — a Canadian soldier. I asked him how 
 long he had been in the trenches before he was wounded. 
 He replied: "I was not there over three minutes. I had 
 trained in camp for a year and then was sent to the 
 trenches. I asked a man where I was to stand and then 
 
THE CRISIS OF CIVILIZATION 7 
 
 it was all over. The next thing I knew I was in a hospital, 
 and a doctor from Chicago had cut a piece out of my 
 skull." I asked him if he had recovered. "I am well 
 enough," he said, "but sometimes I fall unconscious." 
 Poor wretch ! He did not know that epilepsy was before 
 him and that his mind would soon be gone. He was "only 
 there three minutes"! Where is the romance in such 
 slaughter as that? But it may be he will not die in vain. 
 It may be that his fate and that of thousands like him will 
 help to rid us from the delusion that war is a glorious 
 thing, instead of being, as it really is, the denial of human- 
 ity. But that which calls for our immediate attention is 
 that in a new war the destructive means will be less me- 
 chanical than chemical, and that the object will be not so 
 much the defeat of an enemy in the field as the destruction 
 of the peoples — ^helpless old men, tender women, and inno- 
 cent children. Now if that hell is to be let loose upon the 
 earth, why should we suppose that our civilization can 
 endure?* 
 
 But the internal sjonptoms of decay are not the only 
 signs of the times which we are called upon to consider. 
 Rome was not built in a day and Rome did not fall in a 
 day. Long before the flood came it was recognized by 
 thoughtful men that while the walls had been well built 
 and were still strong, nevertheless there were serious cracks 
 in the masonry; the foundations were showing signs of 
 weakness and the walls bulging out. There were spas- 
 modic efforts made from time to time to repair the breaches, 
 but they were met with scepticism or indifference. Even 
 so, they would probably have lasted for centuries longer 
 than they did had there been no external pressure upon 
 them. That external pressure came in what we call the 
 incursions of the barbarians. When that great mass was 
 
 *See the lecture by General Bliss on "Disarmament" in "What 
 Really Happened at Paris. The Story of the Peace Conference." By 
 American Delegates. Edited by Edward Mandell House. 
 
8 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 hurled upon them, the walls of the Eternal City fell with 
 a crash, the echo of which is heard round the world to-day. 
 
 But, it may be asked, "Why recall the well-known 
 story? Is it suggested that there is an analogy between 
 the fifth and twentieth centuries? Is there fear of a new 
 barbarian incursion?" If we say "Yes," no doubt it will 
 seem to not a few to be too fantastic to deserve the atten- 
 tion of sane men. Yet, why should it seem fantastic? 
 Why should it seem incredible? Probably because we do 
 not recognize that there is to-day any enemy of Western 
 civilization. Yet that is what Asia is. 
 
 For a thousand years the wars of Europe and America 
 have been civil wars — that is, conflicts between men shar- 
 ing a more or less common ideal and derived from a com- 
 mon stock. But we forget that for almost a millennium 
 previous the wars had been between Asia and Europe. 
 Have we forgotten how, under the leadership first of Per- 
 sia, then of Arabia, and then led by the Saracens, and 
 lastly by the fierce Osmanli, Asia came so near to con- 
 quering Europe and preventing the building of this civiliza- 
 tion which we think so enduring that we cannot to-day 
 read the story of the battle of the Loire or of the siege of 
 Vienna without a quickening of the pulse and a thrill of 
 atavistic fear? Europe conquered. Its faith, its indus- 
 try, and its science enabled it to overcome Asia, so that 
 for centuries Asia has been a negligible factor in the world's 
 history. Why, then, should it be supposed that it can 
 now become a menace? Our Saviour, speaking to the 
 men of his day and foretelling the fall of Jerusalem, did 
 not rest his prediction upon the evidences of internal decay 
 alone; he pointed to the dark cloud of Rome, and an- 
 nounced a great law of history: "Wherever the carcass is, 
 there will the vultures be gathered together." If the life, 
 the spirit, the faith die out of Western civilization, it will 
 become a carcass, and, by a law of history, the vultures 
 will gather together. 
 
 I would not add one grain to the suspicion already too 
 
THE CRISIS OF CIVILIZATION 9 
 
 great in certain parts of this country, of the Oriental peo- 
 ples; but we Christians have no right to ask that they 
 should not take advantage of the opportunity that may 
 come to them to avenge an ancient grudge. For what has 
 Europe, in its diplomatic and economic activities, backed 
 up by army and navy, done during all the time that it has 
 had Asia beneath its feet? The shameful story can be 
 read, from the "Opium War" to the suppression of the 
 Boxer rebellion. And that history has made a profound 
 impression. Asia has learned that the greatness of the 
 leading nations of Europe and America has been built 
 upon the foimdation of the oppression of weaker people. 
 If, then, the opportunity comes, and we in turn are weak, 
 by what right shall we ask them to refrain from doing 
 what we have done? Should we not receive the answer 
 that Shylock gave when begged not to take advantage of 
 the disasters of his debtor? 
 
 "If you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like 
 you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew 
 wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a 
 Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by 
 Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you 
 teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will bet- 
 ter the instruction." 
 
 What wrongs have not India, China, Japan to revenge? 
 "Even so," it may be said, "they have not the power." 
 Why have they not the power? We may soon no longer 
 have the wealth on which we depended. They have the 
 men; they have all that science has armed us with. I 
 think, if we have read history aright, we shall be obliged 
 to say: "All they need is a leader. Let a great leader 
 arise — either an individual or a nation — as was the case of 
 old, and there will be no reason why Asia should not arise 
 in her might and destroy that in which we trust.* If 
 
 *"In this new era we have the assertion of the full independence 
 of the Indian mind. The educated Indian now regards himself as 
 full-grown man, the equal in every respect of the cultivated European, 
 
lo THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 Europe and America are dismembered or weakened, then 
 the law of the carcass and the vultures will reign/* 
 
 Nor if we turn from the general to the particular, does 
 the outlook become more encouraging. Who can con- 
 sider the potential power of Russia and fail to be im- 
 pressed by the awful danger that lurks in that desperate 
 people? There are not a few thoughtful men who believe 
 that the reign of terror in Russia will be followed by the 
 rise of an imperialistic leader, as was the case in France, 
 and that inflamed by the faith in the rights of the prole- 
 tariat, as France was by the faith in the "rights of man," 
 they will sweep over Europe. But, as *' history does not 
 repeat itself," it may be that the leader will be found, not 
 in an individual but in a nation. Such a nation may well 
 be Japan. There is before her the example of England, a 
 little island, ruling a great colonial empire. There is the 
 example of Germany — and it must not be forgotten that 
 the influence of German imperialism has been great in 
 Japan. It might, indeed, seem at first as if the fate of 
 Germany might prove a warning. But no one knows bet- 
 ter than Japan how near Germany came to winning the 
 late war. The statesmen of Japan may well say to them- 
 selves that the luck is not likely to run again so disas- 
 trously against a player who places his stake on the num- 
 ber which has just lost. If China can be dominated, Rus- 
 sia led, India and Persia incited to revolt, and the great 
 Mohammedan peoples consolidated, as the Turks were 
 
 not to be set aside as an Asiatic, or as a member of a dark race. He 
 claims the right of thinking his own thoughts; and he is quite prepared 
 to burn what he has hitherto adored and to create a new heaven and 
 a new earth. This adult self-confidence was immeasurably strength- 
 ened by the victory of Japan over Russia. Every Asiatic felt himself 
 recreated by that great event. To all Asiatic lands it was a crisis in 
 race-history, the moment when the age-old flood of European aggres- 
 sion was turned back. The exultation which every Indian felt over 
 the victory lifted the national spirit to its height and gave a new note 
 of strength to the period." — "Modern Religious Movements in India," 
 by J. N. Farquhar, pp. 354-355- 
 
THE CRISIS OF CIVILIZATION ii 
 
 never able to consolidate them, might not the East liberate 
 itself and conquer the world ? 
 
 But if this suggestion seem too fantastic — though it is 
 no more fantastic than what this generation has seen — can 
 we say that a conflict between the United States and Japan 
 is impossible? Should that come, there is one thing that, 
 I think, may be confidently prophesied, and that is, that 
 in all the churches there will be heard voices declaring 
 that this is a new crusade. We shall be told that the war 
 came because Japan closed the "open door" to China; or 
 that the people of the Pacific coast would not consent to 
 have their pure "Nordic" blood contaminated by an 
 Asiatic strain. In this there will be some truth. But if 
 before the conflict comes, and we still have time to con- 
 sider the question dispassionately, we should tell the fun- 
 damental truth, which is that such a war would be the 
 inevitable result of the conflict between the imperialistic 
 designs of Japan and the imperialistic designs of the 
 United States in the Pacific, it might be that an adjust- 
 ment might be made. The churches should be preparing 
 to speak with authority before the storm breaks. For the 
 churches are responsible in no small degree for the present 
 tension. Few voices were raised in the churches against 
 the imperialistic experiment of the United States which 
 followed the Spanish War. No one of the churches failed 
 more lamentably than the Episcopal Church, which, influ- 
 enced by the example of England, hailed, by the mouth of 
 some of its most influential bishops, " the glorious mission 
 of America to bear its share of the * white man's burden.'" 
 Such men, if war comes again, will be as truly, even though 
 imintentionally, responsible as were the leaders of the 
 Lutheran Church in Germany who failed to protest against 
 Bismarck's policy of "blood and iron" for the real out- 
 break of the World War. 
 
 I have spoken of those who make light of the signs of 
 the times as "optimists," for such they like to call them- 
 
12 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 selves; but he only is a true optimist who faces the facts of 
 life, estimates at their true value the dangers of the pres- 
 ent, and yet has faith enough to believe that out of evil 
 God will bring good. It is the latter only who can prop- 
 erly be called an optimist, though to the thoughtless he 
 will seem to be a Cassandra or a Jeremiah. On the other 
 hand, there will be found those who say that the outlook 
 is so discouraging as to be hopeless. But it has been well 
 said, "Truth is never discouraging." The difficulties are 
 indeed great, but so should be our faith. "When the Son 
 of Man Cometh will he find faith on the earth?'' That 
 should be for us, as it was for Jesus, the one important 
 question. Underneath the irreconcilable ideals of East 
 and West is a spiritual one. The fatalism of the East 
 counts the life of the individual as the small dust in the 
 balance. What spiritual power have we with which to 
 meet the fatalism of the East? That is the fundamental 
 question and leads to a consideration of the mission and 
 the task of the churches. 
 
 It is true we have great hopes; nevertheless, the dangers 
 have not passed. So while we should rejoice, and do re- 
 joice, at the dawn of a better day, we must listen to St. 
 PauFs stirring words: "The day is at hand, therefore put 
 off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light." 
 The dangers of which we have been thinking may not be 
 so imminent as has been assumed, but they have not dis- 
 appeared. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." 
 How much more must it be said to be the price of salva- 
 tion, whether personal or universal ! 
 
CHAPTER II 
 THE MISSION OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 Have the churches remembered their primary mission? 
 The church was ordained to be a missionary society. 
 Every one of the churches has such a society. But can it 
 be denied that it is rather as an adjunct than as a manifes- 
 tation of the essential work of the churches? How many 
 we know in all the churches who state plainly that they 
 have no interest in foreign missions. This may mean no 
 more, and I believe does mean no more, than that people 
 are indifferent to many of the missionary activities of the 
 churches. But can it be denied that in all the churches 
 the great work of the conversion of the world has been 
 preached rather as a work of supererogation than as the 
 primary work of the church of Christ? Until the spirit of 
 missions is revived, there can be no expectation that the 
 churches can meet the crisis of the world. 
 
 Again let us turn to the history of Rome. As a result of 
 the barbarian invasion, the ancient civilization fell. How 
 much of it was lost we shall probably never know. That 
 everything was not lost was due to the Christian church. 
 But why the church was spared when so much else was lost 
 has not, I think, been sufficiently considered. Why was it 
 that those fierce men who knew nothing of the "glory 
 that was Greece" nor "the grandeur that was Rome" 
 spared the church? Every one knows the familiar story 
 of the great pope, Leo I, going out to meet the conqueror, 
 and that the barbarian yielded to the bishop. Doubtless, 
 as Gibbon says, "the pressing eloquence of Leo, his majes- 
 tic aspect, and sacerdotal robes excited the veneration of 
 Attila for the spiritual father of the Christians." But 
 these would have effected but a momentary check had 
 
 13 
 
14 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 they not been supplemented by the fear and veneration of 
 the army which he led. Attila was a Hun, but the Ostro- 
 Goths and many others in the barbarian herd were nomi- 
 nally Christian, and it is to them that the salvation of the 
 church in that critical hour is due. Had it been a heathen 
 flood that poured over Europe the church would have 
 perished as did so much else. But centuries before, while 
 the legions were still holding the banks of the Rhine and of 
 the Danube, while the camps of Rome were still upon the 
 Hellespont, "holding the fort," Christian men climbed the 
 mountains of the Balkans, crossed the plains of Hungary, 
 penetrated the forests of Bohemia, and journeyed as far 
 as the shores of the Baltic, preaching Jesus Christ * 
 Therefore, when the dam broke and the waters of the 
 Rhine and the Danube and the Black Sea poured in over 
 Asia Minor, Illyricum, Italy, Spain, and France, the church 
 and the church alone rode like the ark on the waves of this 
 troublesome world. The barbarians saw in the lives of 
 the saintly women and heroic men the culmination of a 
 faith of which they had already heard and which they in a 
 measure had learned to obey. They saw in the faces of 
 little children a light that had begun to dawn in the dark 
 forests of their former homes, and they knelt to kiss the 
 feet of the Infant Jesus and bowed down before the cross. 
 They were not awed by any bishop; they were not "con- 
 verted" by any organization; they recognized their spiri- 
 tual kin in the Christians of Europe and spared them. 
 They had been converted not by the CathoHc Church; 
 they had heard the gospel from those whom that church 
 had cast out.f 
 The lesson should not be hard to learn. If before the 
 
 * Some of the early missionaries were captives. Their conquerors 
 little guessed that in scattering them through Central Europe they 
 were preparing for their own submission to the captives* Lord. "Cap- 
 tivity was again carried captive." 
 
 t The Arians. 
 
THE MISSION OF THE CHURCHES 15 
 
 new barbaric invasion of Western civilization breaks 
 through the barriers that army and navy protect, the 
 churches were to send out their messengers into all lands, 
 the same miracle might be worked again in our day, and 
 the faith of Christ might be saved. 
 
 The crisis of the world should lead to a revolution in 
 foreign missions. If Christian men were seriously to ask 
 themselves what is their duty in the presence of the possi- 
 bility of a new barbaric invasion, they might be led to feel 
 that it is the missionaries rather than armies and navies 
 upon which our hope depends. I believe that the Danish 
 Mission at Serampore, and the Zenana Mission of Ameri- 
 can women in India; the Yale Mission, and St. John's 
 College, and St. Agnes School in China; St. PauFs College 
 and Hospital in Japan and Robert College in Constanti- 
 nople — to mention but a few of those agencies which in 
 modem ways are doing the same work which the men of 
 old did, and so saved the church when the Roman Empire 
 fell — ^are doing more for the safety of Western civilization 
 than all the armies and navies of the world combined.* 
 For, while the West has shown its power to triumph over 
 the weak, which will lead to revenge, the messengers of 
 peace — certainly some of them — have had the courage to 
 say that we are ashamed of the misuse of our power and 
 have sent them to reveal what it is that we really value. 
 
 The first thing that we value is the beautiful life of Jesus; 
 but his death is more beautiful still. The heathen may 
 
 * That the English government of India since the repeal of the char- 
 ter of the East India Company has been a blessing to India will be 
 denied only by those who are so obsessed by the theory of "self-deter- 
 mination" that they have not paused to consider what "self" implies. 
 The modern religious movement among the natives of India would 
 have been impossible without the strong arm of the government which 
 protected religious freedom, and the rise of Nationalism would have 
 been impossible without the previous training of the natives by English 
 officials. But it must not be forgotten that one of the greatest bless- 
 ings was the freedom granted the missionaries to preach the gospel, 
 which the East India Company had not permitted. 
 
i6 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 not be able to see that as it is set forth by St. Paul, or, 
 perhaps we should say, as it has been popularly expounded, 
 but they would feel its attractiveness as it is revealed by 
 St. John. There they would see that what we value above 
 all things is not the spirit of conquest, but the spirit of self- 
 sacrificing love. "The Cross of Christ," it has been finely 
 said, " touched the common heart of humanity. It awak- 
 ened a new sense of brotherhood in all men of all classes 
 and nationalities, so that henceforth in their deeper inter- 
 ests they were one.'* * The same effect would be pro- 
 duced to-day. That is why the ministrations of the physi- 
 cian have made so deep an impression upon the heathen, 
 while they have seemed indifferent to the doctrines of the 
 preacher. A highly educated Japanese, not a Christian, 
 told me that it was almost impossible for the Japanese to 
 believe in disinterested love, and could not understand the 
 Christian attitude. But he admitted that it was beauti- 
 ful. What Christian man who has felt the constraining 
 love of Christ, or what man who knows anything of the 
 history of the church, can doubt that all men would feel 
 the attraction of self-sacrificing love, and so that in this 
 day Christ, ''lifted up," would draw men unto him? 
 Therein lies our hope. 
 
 But hope is increased by a quickening of the imagina- 
 tion. How little there is in the ordinary mission report 
 to touch the imagination ! Too often we feel its pettiness. 
 May that not be due in part to the fact that our only 
 means of knowing of the work the churches are doing in 
 the uttermost parts of the earth is the denominational 
 paper which reports what its own ministers and workers 
 are doing with no hint that others are doing the same? If 
 there were one great missionary journal which kept the 
 people at home informed of what all the churches were 
 doing, there would be a revival of interest as the result of 
 the larger aspect of the work which would in that way be 
 * "The Fourth Gospel," E. F. Scott. 
 
THE MISSION OF THE CHURCHES 17 
 
 recorded. I have listened to many reports from returned 
 missionaries, but I confess I have never had my imagina- 
 tion so quickened as by the account of the late Mr. Dun- 
 can of his life among the Metlakatla Indians. He went 
 out alone and had the support of no "society," and wias 
 opposed by the bishop of his own church. Yet that man, 
 single-handed, converted a savage tribe of cannibals into 
 an industrious, pious. Christian people. xThey knew noth- 
 ing of "orders" and little of "sacraments," * but they 
 knew the love of God which passeth knowledge, and they 
 tried to serve the Lord Jesus. If we could have before us 
 the record of all that is being done by the many churches, 
 I believe there would come a hope for the conversion of 
 the world which we cannot have while we are "looking 
 every one to his own things" and not regarding the "things 
 of others." 
 
 There are two objections frequently urged against for- 
 eign missions: one is from the church members, and the 
 other is from those who have slight interest in the church, 
 whether at home or abroad. Let us consider each of 
 them. 
 
 "The heathen," we are told, "are confused by our de- 
 nominational differences." It is not our differences of 
 form of administration which confuse them. They are 
 familiar with these differences in the religions which they 
 know among their own people. It is our want of mutual 
 love which shocks them. If a group of men and women 
 setting out from England or Germany or Scandinavia or 
 America have in their own homes felt the importance of 
 
 * Mr. Duncan baptized, but he would not administer the communion 
 because he was convinced that men who had just emerged from can- 
 nibalism would not be made to understand what "spiritual feeding" 
 means. An interesting parallel is found in the story of Ulphilas, the 
 great apostle to the Goths. In his translation of the Old Testament 
 he omitted the Four Books of Kings (as in that day they were named) 
 as unfitted to such a turbulent and bloodthirsty people. See Gibbon's 
 "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," chap. XXXVII. 
 
i8 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 certain aspects of truth, it is only to be expected that they 
 will work best by emphasizing those aspects of truth. Of 
 course, if they go so far as to teach the heathen that those 
 aspects are the only ones which constitute a true disciple 
 of Jesus, they are unfaithful to their trust. But why 
 should it be supposed that all Chinese or Japanese will be 
 responsive to but one form of worship or doctrine? Such 
 a theory seems to partake of the mistake which it is said 
 the Chinese doctors made when the first missionary physi- 
 cians went to China. When they tried to convince the 
 Chinese that the various organs of the human body are 
 not placed where the ancient tradition of the Chinese 
 asserted they were, they refused to believe they could be 
 mistaken. The Chinese would not allow an autopsy to 
 be performed upon one of their countrymen, so that for a 
 long time no progress could be made. At last an American 
 cadaver was obtained and a demonstration of the facts 
 presented to the Chinese. But it was answered that 
 while no doubt the facts were as the autopsy showed in the 
 body of an American, the case was different with the Chi- 
 nese! How does this anatomical heresy differ from our 
 ecclesiastical heresy which denies the spiritual unity of the 
 race? The notion that there are not embryonic Presby- 
 terians and Methodists and Baptists and Episcopalians in 
 Asia as well as in Europe is as absurd as to assert that 
 there are in foreign lands no differences of stature among 
 the inhabitants. Some years ago a young Japanese friend 
 told me that one of his greatest difficulties in first coming 
 to America was to distinguish one person from another. 
 "They all looked alike." When he was told that Ameri- 
 cans found the same difficulty in distinguishing Japanese 
 from one another, he was astonished. 
 
 The church was ordained to preach the gospel in "the 
 tongue wherein men were born," whether that tongue be 
 the tongue of Luther or Calvin or Wesley or any other of 
 the great teachers of the church. There is but one gospel, 
 
THE MISSION OF THE CHURCHES 19 
 
 but the form which it will take will be determined by the 
 differences of men^s spiritual temperaments. If that truth 
 were recognized, the churches would find it possible to co- 
 operate in missionary activities. There is work enough 
 for all. Let each church make disciples, and then it will 
 be of slight consequence what the subspecies may be to 
 which they shall later be assigned. If the churches would 
 agree to divide the field and from time to time meet in 
 brotherly conference to tell of the wonderful things God 
 had wrought, they would be filled with new courage to 
 reconsecrate themselves to the work of the spirit and the 
 churches at home would feel the power of a new hope. In 
 this way they could testify to the essential unity of Christ's 
 church and accomplish more than can be now foreseen in 
 the conversion of the world to Christ. 
 
 Turn now to the consideration of the objections fre- 
 quently urged by those who have no real interest in the 
 church, but declare that all the energy and wealth spent 
 in the attempt to make the world Christian are but lost 
 labor, and tliat it would be better to divert them to the 
 need at home. "How hopeless is the task! When we 
 think of the millions in India, the swarms of life in China, 
 the self-satisfaction of the Japanese, why should we sup- 
 pose they will listen to our message? The East is not 
 receptive to Western ideals. It is satisfied with its own 
 religion." How belated all this sounds ! The East is very 
 receptive to Western ideals. If it were not so, would these 
 same men be so much interested in the "open door" in 
 China? Western clothes, inventions, books, science, are 
 eagerly sought in all parts of the East to-day. Why should 
 it be supposed that they would not be glad to receive the 
 best we have if we made the same effort to introduce it as 
 we make to introduce our manufactured goods? 
 
 The men who assert that the East is satisfied with its 
 religion show ignorance of the facts. The East is not sat- 
 isfied with its religions. The state of affairs in Asia to-day 
 
20 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 is strikingly like that of Europe in the time of Paul. The 
 old gods are being deserted. The educated people in every 
 land scoff at them. The poor and ignorant, the peas- 
 ants, still do sacrifice to them from time to time, because 
 of superstitious fear. "Who can tell? There may be 
 gods and they may have power to destroy the harvest or 
 sicken the cattle or take the lives of the children. It is 
 best to keep in with them." Nevertheless, the contact 
 between the West and the East has produced a deep scep- 
 ticism, and the gods are losing their power and men are 
 turning sadly away from their worship. The scepticism 
 which we have produced calls on us to bring in a living 
 faith. If we do not, then the experiences of Asia will be 
 like that of the man in the parable who deserted his house, 
 went out into the waste places, and then, weary of wander- 
 ing, turned homeward. The house was swept and gar- 
 nished. Everything familiar had gone. Who could endure 
 such loneliness in the midst of this mysterious universe? 
 "He went out and took to himself seven other spirits 
 more wicked than himself, and the last state of the man 
 was worse than the first." So may it well be with a nation 
 dissatisfied with its ancient religion. Man is "incurably 
 religious"; if when these people returned to their house of 
 religion they found it not empty but filled with the spirit 
 of Jesus, would they not welcome him? There are pro- 
 found questions, both ethical and philosophical, which 
 must be adjusted — just as there were in the Roman Empire 
 when the gospel was first preached. But those must wait. 
 The immediate need is to convince the world that God is 
 witn it. Let any man who is sceptical of the present in- 
 fluence of Christ in heathendom read "Modern Religious 
 Movements in India," * and he may learn what the para- 
 ble of the leaven means. There is no record of "conver- 
 sions," but rather the record of the various religious move- 
 ments which have arisen as the result of the example of 
 * J. N. Farquhar. 
 
THE MISSION OF THE CHURCHES 21 
 
 missionary activities which are profoundly affecting the 
 life of India much in the same way as the preaching of the 
 gospel affected Europe. There is not only imitation; there 
 is also hostility. And the latter is showing itself in an 
 attempt to revive the ancient worship, just as Julian the 
 Apostate tried to revive the dying paganism of his day. 
 But that attempt, as well as this, is a sign of the decline 
 of the power of the old religions. The student of Chris- 
 tian history will see that in India, as in Europe, no revival 
 of the ancient cult can be permanent because there are in 
 it inherent weaknesses which can be cured only by the 
 acknowledgment of Jesus as Lord and Master. 
 
 We have heard many stirring sermons on the "man 
 from Macedonia" and his cry, "Come over and help us," 
 but have we realized that the great apostle's decision to 
 pass from Asia meant also a change of method? When 
 Paul and Barnabas preached in Lycaonia they were preach- 
 ing to idolaters, who "brought oxen and garlands to do 
 sacrifice," but when Paul passed over to Greece, while he 
 still met idolaters, he also met "philosophers" and learned 
 that the message must now be given in a different way. 
 
 The early missionaries went forth to preach to idolaters, 
 to the "heathen in their blindness, bowing down to wood 
 and stone." But there has come a great change in the 
 heathen world as the result of the contact between East 
 and West. There are thousands of educated men, and 
 some women, in India, China, and Japan, who have been 
 influenced by the lives of Christian missionaries, who have 
 been educated in the universities of Europe and America, 
 who cannot be called idolaters, but theists, and yet do not 
 know what the worship of God as spirit reaUy means. 
 The message of the church must now be carried to them. 
 The old complaint, that converts were made only among 
 the "coolies," has no longer force. 
 
 How is that message to be given? Many of the men, 
 destined to be the leaders of the people, are filled with the 
 
22 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 scientific spirit of the West. They will not accept a part 
 of the gospel, the tradition with which we are familiar, and 
 which we are able to use as the temporary husk of the 
 kernel of truth. They must be approached in a new way 
 — though, indeed, it is the old way in which Jesus trained 
 the fiirst disciples. ''Tell us plainly," said some of the 
 men to whom he preached, "if thou be the Christ." But 
 he did not tell them "plainly"; he pointed to certain facts, 
 "the works that he did in his father's name," and left them 
 to draw their own conclusions. In other words, he fol- 
 lowed what we now call the scientific method, from the 
 known to the unknown. This is what the church must 
 now do. "The mist of centuries has cleared away, and 
 once more we behold the Man, the Teacher, the Friend, 
 the Hero, the Revealer of the more Excellent Way, and 
 we feel that in Jesus we have the pledge and proof that 
 humanity is capable of realizing its ideal. Orthodox reli- 
 gious teachers have been so anxiously occupied in safe- 
 guarding the Divinity of Christ that they have almost for- 
 gotten the Humanity. I would urge them to make sure of 
 the Humanity and the Divinity will make sure of itself." * 
 The East for centuries has meditated on the mystery of the 
 Godhead, but now, by its contact with the West, it has 
 awakened to a new sense of the power of man. If the 
 modem missionary can show what we mean when we 
 speak of man, he will also show what we mean by God. 
 For all that we know about God has come through the 
 man Christ Jesus. But in our efforts to deliver that mes- 
 sage, we must approach the heathen from their point of 
 view, not from ours. 
 
 When Paul preached on Mars Hill he did not quote the 
 Hebrew prophets but the Greek poets. He tried to show 
 that in Jesus the ideal of Greece was fulfilled. The church 
 to-day need not make the mistake of Marcion and repudi- 
 
 * "Jesus, Human and Divine," J. F. Bethune-Baker in The Modern 
 Churchman, Sept., 1921. 
 
THE MISSION OF THE CHURCHES 23 
 
 ate the Old Testament as if it had no value, but it cannot 
 be expected that it can have the same preparatory value 
 in India, China, and Japan that it had for the Jews or even 
 for Christians brought up to reverence it as the inerrant 
 word of God. There are treasures of spiritual literature 
 in the heathen world which bear witness to the kinship 
 between God and man which is the foundation of the reve- 
 lation of Jesus. It is to those the missionary must turn to 
 show that the discipleship of Jesus does not mean that 
 they are to deny that God has spoken to their fathers. 
 The church must learn from the Theosophist. "The Theo- 
 sophical Society,'' says one who speaks with authority on 
 the religious condition of India, "is first of all sympathetic 
 to all religions. It has assumed a generous attitude, the 
 attitude of appreciation and friendship. Nor is that all. 
 The society . . . invites men and women to come and 
 enjoy the rich feast which Oriental religions offer to the 
 student. . . . They have usually filled men's heads with 
 froth instead of knowledge. Yet the fact remains that 
 they have attempted to do in a wrong way what the 
 Church of Christ ought to have done in the right way. 
 This is unquestionably the first attraction which Theoso- 
 phy presents to the outsider; and it is the attraction which 
 has drawn to it the great majority of the more intellectual 
 men who at one time or another have belonged to it." * 
 
 No obscurantist theology will appeal to educated men 
 in heathendom any more than it appeals to educated men 
 in Christendom. But a gospel which is not confused by 
 myths, but is the declaration of the man in whom we see 
 God, is the need and the hope of the world to-day as it 
 has ever been. When the church recognizes that this is 
 the work it is called upon to do, there will be a revival of 
 the spirit of missions and a revival of the hope and power 
 of the church. 
 
 •"Modern Religious Movements in India," J. N. Farquhar, pp. 
 286-287. 
 
24 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 From the third to the fifth century the church was en- 
 gaged in interpreting the gospel in terms of Greek philoso- 
 phy. Ecclesiastical historians would lead us to suppose 
 that this was the only work that the church was doing, 
 just as secular historians have led to the belief that the 
 history of the world is the history of courts and armies. 
 We are coming to learn that the history of the people has 
 still to be written. Multitudes of men and women of 
 whom the world was not worthy were being converted 
 while the great councils were formulating the creeds. This 
 philosophic work of the church was interrupted by the 
 barbarian incursion, and, as a result, we have concluded 
 that the work was completed. As a matter of fact, it was 
 interrupted, and now, after the darkness of the Dark 
 Ages, and the confusion of mediaevalism, when the great 
 teachers of the church did no more than attempt to adjust 
 the "deposit of faith" to the teachings of Aristotle, and 
 later the reformers were trying to put the old wine into the 
 new bottles of the sixteenth century, a new conception of 
 the universe and of man had taken possession of men's 
 thoughts. That new conception has penetrated the hea- 
 then world, and, as a consequence, there has arisen a prob- 
 lem with which the early missionaries were not called 
 upon to deal. 
 
 The position of the churches to-day differs from that of 
 the church of the second century in one important particu- 
 lar which must affect its work. The Roman Empire at 
 first protected the church — partly, no doubt, because of 
 indifference. Then it persecuted, and at last succumbed. 
 But the relation of the churches to the state to-day is not 
 that of a foreign body to an external government; it is the 
 relation of a part of the community to its own servant, yet 
 the need of the influence of the churches upon the govern- 
 ment is as great to-day as ever, though it must be exercised 
 in a different way. 
 
 This brings us face to face with a question which we do 
 
THE MISSION OF THE CHURCHES 2$ 
 
 not like to consider: Is modem civilization worth saving, 
 and, if so, is it any part of the church's work to save it ? 
 Tolstoy firmly believed that it was necessary to destroy 
 modem civilization because it was anti-Christ. He ignored 
 the whole history of the church and insisted that the Ser- 
 mon on the Mount was the revelation of the new law of 
 himian society. That the precepts of the Sermon on the 
 Mount cannot be the law of society is evident. Shall, 
 then, society be destroyed, or shall we abandon the Chris- 
 tian law? That seems to be the dilemma from which 
 there is no escape. One hom of the dilemma is taken by 
 those whom it is the fashion to speak of as "parlor an- 
 archists." The other has been seized by the Soviet govem- 
 ment in Russia. The escape is to be found not by ignor- 
 ing either hom of the dilemma, but by a synthesis which 
 will enable us to rise above the controversy by a better 
 understanding of the problem. This, I believe, is being 
 done by those who have studied the words of our Saviour 
 more carefully than had been done in the past. They 
 have come to the conclusion that the Sermon on the 
 Mount is not to be taken as a new law which should be 
 enforced in all circumstances and applied to groups of 
 men. They believe it is the setting forth of an ideal which 
 the individual must endeavor to reach in his own life and 
 gradually impart to all men, who then will endeavor to 
 realize the ideal in every relation of life. The exhortation 
 to turn the other cheek when smitten on the first is 
 probably an example of that same ironic humor which ex- 
 pressed itself in the figure of the camel and the eye of 
 the needle.* 
 
 Suppose, then, with this thought of our Saviour's teach- 
 ing we approach our problem, not desiring to lower the 
 ideal, but in the hope of finding a way in which the ideal 
 might be made more effective than it is at present, and 
 ask: What do we mean by civilization? If we mean the 
 * See "Jesus in the Experience of Men," T. R, Glover. 
 
26 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 statecraft which the war has discredited, the materialistic 
 conception of life which has vulgarized society, the ugly 
 industrialism which has covered the fields with smoking 
 factories and the cities of festering slums, the fierce strug- 
 gle between capital and labor, a godless education, the 
 commercialized wars for the exploitation of the backward 
 peoples, then, indeed. Christian men may say that they 
 have no desire to save it, that it can be no work of the 
 church to serve it. But if we look on these things which 
 we condemn as blots and blemishes, indeed, but no essen- 
 tial element of civilized life, and define civilization as a 
 system of life which should lead to reverence of law, which 
 strives to organize government for the protection of life, 
 liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which would enrich 
 life by beauty and make it sweeter and healthier and more 
 prosperous; in other words, if the ideal be a common- 
 wealth, which can be established and maintained only by 
 the abolition of dynasties and special privileges, then we 
 have in mind an ideal which prophets and kings have 
 desired to see and have not seen, but which those who fol- 
 low Jesus believe he would have rejoiced to see, which 
 John the Divine saw in his vision of the City of God "com- 
 ing down out of heaven like a bride adorned for her hus- 
 band/' 
 
 Such a hope is worthy of a Christian man; such a work 
 it is the mission of the church to accomplish, and so con- 
 ceived it becomes an inspiration. It does not lead us to 
 think that the heathen are to be converted in order that 
 they may be taken out of the world, but rather that they 
 may play their part in the world as brethren and heirs of 
 the promise. But when they ask for an example of what 
 we mean by a nobler social life than they have enjoyed, 
 can we say that it is to be found in Western civilization as 
 it exists to-day? We know that we cannot. We know 
 that the great obstacle to the conversion of the world to 
 Christ is the example of the so-called Christian nations. 
 
\ THE MISSION OF THE CHURCHES 27 
 
 Thereiore, the conversion of the world demands the spiri- 
 tualization of civilization, and, we believe, there is no 
 organization except the Christian church which lives for 
 that purpose. If this be true, then it follows that the 
 church has an intimate interest in and responsibility for 
 the political, social, industrial, and educational life of the 
 community, as well as for the individuals who have al- 
 ready entered into its communion. 
 
 To treat of these subjects in detail would require the 
 writing of another book and a knowledge to which I lay 
 no claim. But there are certain things which the churches 
 and the churches alone can do, to which attention may 
 properly be called. 
 
CHAPTER in 
 THE TASK OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 To speak of the task of the churches as something dif- 
 ferent from the mission of the churches may seem to 
 some a distinction without a difference. But I do not so 
 understand it. The difference may be compared to that 
 between "strategy*' and "tactics." The former, which is 
 allied to the root "scatter/' deals with those problems 
 which arise when the army has taken the field, while the 
 latter is concerned with the preliminary training which fits 
 the army for the campaign. In the same way, we speak 
 of the mission of the church as its work in the scattered 
 parts of the world, and of its task as the work which must 
 be done at home. 
 
 The first question which the churches should ask them- 
 selves is one that the heathen insist upon our answering: 
 Who are we to represent Jesus? Do not the words of the 
 Psalmist apply to the Christian nations? "Unto the un- 
 godly said God: Why dost thou preach my laws, and tak- 
 est my covenant in thy mouth; whereas thou hatest to be 
 reformed: and hast cast my words behind thee? When 
 thou sawest a thief, thou consentedst unto him: and hast 
 been partaker with the adulterers. . . . These things 
 hast thou done, and I held my tongue, and thou thoughtest 
 wickedly, that I am even such a one as thyself: but I will 
 reprove thee, and set before thee the things that thou 
 hast done. O consider this, ye that forget God: lest I 
 pluck you away, and there be none to deliver you. . . . 
 To him that ordereth his conversation right, will I show 
 the salvation of God." * 
 
 * Psalm 50 : 16-23, Prayer-Book version. 
 28 
 
THE TASK OF THE CHURCHES 29 
 
 Can it be claimed that this country has ordered its "con- 
 versation," that is, its life, right, so that it can claim to 
 be an example to the world? We have only to consider 
 what must be familiar to all to answer that question. 
 
 When we admit to ourselves that with all our boasting 
 of "triumphant democracy,'' the great cities of the land, 
 yes, and towns and villages as well, are not enjoying "gov- 
 ernment of the people, for the people, by the people," but 
 of, and by, and for, the bosses, we may be led to ask our- 
 selves whether the church is in any way responsible. 
 When we boast of the security we enjoy under the Consti- 
 tution of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, we 
 might remember the desperate state of the negro in this 
 land. Is the burning of widows on the pyre of their hus- 
 bands, sometimes, we are assured, with their own consent, 
 worse than the burning of negroes, not infrequently on 
 the mere suspicion of crime — a proof of the brotherhood 
 proclaimed by Jesus? Is polygamy a greater social evil 
 than facile divorce? Are the feuds between the tongs in 
 China worse than the ruthless war between capital and 
 labor in all the great industrial centres of this land? Is 
 the preaching of a debased form of patriotism, which ex- 
 presses itself in the immoral dictum, "My country, right 
 or wrong," never heard from Christian pulpits? Have the 
 churches used their influence to lessen the excessive arma- 
 ments which are crushing the world with the weight of 
 taxation, or are they leaving it to the diplomats — the 
 "professional politicians" — whose statecraft brought on 
 the World War? Such questions as these are being asked 
 by serious-minded men in India, China, and Japan, as well 
 as in Europe and America. We may think that they are 
 put in a way that implies that Western civilization is noth- 
 ing less than organized hypocrisy, and so turn from them 
 as not worthy of the consideration of respectable men. 
 But we may not so easily escape. The same questions are 
 being asked in all the colleges, and are disquieting to those 
 
30 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 who believe that they are living in the best of all possible 
 worlds. They are especially disquieting to those who be- 
 lieve that there can be a return to the economic and politi- 
 cal conditions with which they were familiar before the 
 Great War. 
 
 There is one question with which the Christian nations 
 are called upon to deal before they can carry the gospel of 
 human brotherhood to the nations, and that is the relation 
 of so-called Christian nations to one another. An attempt 
 was made soon after the armistice to deal with this ques- 
 tion, and the result was the Treaty of Versailles and the 
 Covenant of the League of Nations. We need not beat 
 again the old straw of the controversy to which these led. 
 The problem which Christian men must solve, and which 
 the politicians can never solve, is how a Christian interna- 
 tionalism can grow out of our national patriotism without 
 destroying the root of patriotism. In order to solve that 
 problem it is not necessary to adopt the theories of the 
 Third Internationale, but it is necessary to recognize the 
 truth which lies in the protest of the Soviet government 
 against "capitalism." 
 
 The churches and the churches alone can accomplish 
 this work because, while the churches are composed of men 
 and women who are also citizens, the churches can lead 
 them on to higher ground than the politician can reach. 
 The churches have it in their power to create a righteous 
 public opinion which will profoundly affect the course of 
 public events. (I say public opiniofij not public emotion, 
 though the two are often confused.) In order to do that, 
 it is necessary to reconsider the meaning of patriotism. 
 There was not a country of Europe which was not poisoned 
 by the same virus which led to the downfall of Germany 
 — ^nor has this country been altogether free from the same 
 evil. The chauvinism which expressed its fierce emotion 
 in the cry "Deutschland iiber alles," rather than Germany 
 for all, if the people happened to speak German, has been 
 
THE TASK OF THE CHURCHES 31 
 
 heard in every tongue and in every land. Is it not time to 
 ask ourselves for what purpose this emotion of patriotism 
 has been used? The Soviets declare that it is excited by 
 the capitalists to further their own selfish purpose. Echoes 
 of that were heard in this land when at last America de- 
 cided to enter into the Great War. Not a few declared 
 that this war, like all wars, was a capitalistic war. The 
 men of property who knew what war would mean to the 
 capitalists, by the destruction of property, the ruin of cus- 
 tomers, the unsettling of credit, and the shaking of the 
 delicate instrument of exchange, were not unnaturally in- 
 dignant at such a charge. But now that the fighting has 
 ceased, should we not seriously consider if there be not 
 more truth in the charge than we were at that time ready 
 to acknowledge? Voltaire said that as the wars of the 
 Old World had been caused by religious hatred and dynas- 
 tic ambitions, so the wars of the future would be economic. 
 Is not that true? From the "Opimn War" in China to 
 the Great War of the world, has not the real cause been 
 economic? The late war was not a capitalistic war in the 
 sense that the capitalists expected personal gain from it, 
 but was it not a capitalistic war in the sense that it was 
 capital invested in the uttermost parts of the earth — 
 Africa, for example — ^which the capitalist wished to pro- 
 tect, which utilized the pure sentiment of patriotism? 
 The danger has not ceased. There is coal and iron in 
 Siberia which all the great industrial nations need. Which 
 shall have the monopoly of this rich and undeveloped 
 country, and how can that be insured except by war? 
 The "proletariat" of the world is declaring that it will 
 no longer be used for exploitation. This conflict between 
 "interests" may lead to revolution in Europe and America. 
 What can the churches do? They can begin to reveal a 
 nobler patriotism which conceives of national greatness in 
 terms of world-wide service. They can preach with power 
 the forgotten message of Jesus, that "A man's life consist- 
 
32 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 eth not in the abundance of the things which he possesses"; 
 they can dare to set themselves against the degradation of 
 the pure emotion of patriotism and inspire it to be the 
 means of a nobler international fellowship which will lead 
 to the abolition of war. 
 
 This will be no easy task, and it cannot be accomplished 
 in a day, nor in a generation. But if it be not begun with- 
 out delay, the world as we know it will perish. 
 
 The churches will find themselves opposed by a pagan 
 heresy which is having a profound influence. That heresy 
 expresses itself in some such way as this: "All this talk 
 about universal peace is futile because war is inevitable. 
 You cannot abolish war, because you cannot change human 
 nature." If this be true, and war is inevitable, then the 
 destruction of Western civilization is inevitable. It is true 
 that war cannot be abolished without a change in human 
 nature. But that statement, so far from discouraging, 
 should be a challenge to the churches, and remind them 
 that a change in human nature was what Jesus came to 
 accomplish. "Ye must be born again," was the solemn 
 beginning of Jesus* preaching; "If any man be in Christ 
 Jesus, he is a new creation," was the joyful cry of Paul 
 ^when he had been baptized into the spirit of his Lord. 
 Nothing less than to change human nature is the task of 
 the church of the living God. Human nature does not 
 mean that to the end of time humanity must be influenced 
 by the same ideals and experiences with no increase of 
 spiritual power. If that were true, there would have been 
 no history. Man would never have descended from his 
 arboreal habitations. But such has not been the fact. 
 There are certain appetites and temptations which assail 
 men and women to-day as they did of old. But let any 
 man read the first chapter of Romans and ask himself if 
 that is the picture of the world to-day where the gospel of 
 Jesus has been preached. Has there been no change, not 
 alone in the ideal but in the power to come nearer to the 
 
THE TASK OF THE CHURCHES 33 
 
 ideal since Paul wrote the thirteenth chapter of Corinthi- 
 ans? "The greatest of all is love." How many believed 
 that when Paul wrote? How few deny it to-day? Has 
 that change of ideal had no influence in changing life? 
 "Nature" means not what is but what is "becoming," 
 what is about to be. So defined, it is true that it cannot 
 be changed nor does any good man desire to change it. 
 But to assert that the sins and weaknesses of this mortal 
 nature cannot be purified is to deny the facts of life. At 
 any rate, the issue is clearly joined. The task of the 
 church is to "change human nature." If it cannot do 
 that, it is of small consequence what else it does. The day 
 was when it was "natural" to adore Tiberius Caesar, to 
 think of slavery as the foundation of society, to look on 
 women as made for the lust or convenience of men, to 
 think of children as an encumbrance rather than as the 
 gift of God, to find joy in gladiatorial shows, to contem- 
 plate an endless hell of physical torture with equanimity, 
 to vindicate honor by duelling, to — ^but why continue the 
 catalogue? 
 
 We have heard men say that all these facts prove is, not 
 that human nature can be changed, but simply that the 
 fashion of wickedness changes; that the same passions 
 which exhibited themselves in gross forms, which now dis- 
 gust us, are to be seen in more refined form to-day; that 
 there has been no essential change in the characteristics of 
 humanity. Well, that, I suppose, is the truth which lies 
 in the dogma of "original sin." The temptations of the 
 flesh persist. But a habit of righteousness having been 
 once established, those impulses to evil remain as do cer- 
 tain obsolete organs in the human body. Not a few of 
 these no longer function and others are being eradicated 
 by modem surgery. We are so exercised with the problem 
 of intemperance that we find it difficult to believe that 
 gluttony was one of the most debasing habits of the best 
 society in ancient Rome. The healthy appetite for food 
 
34 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 has not been extinguished, but gluttony is rare in civilized 
 society. Now, has the inhibition of gluttony, which has 
 produced a new social habit, had no effect upon the spiri- 
 tual life of man ? No student of psychology would assert 
 such a thing. If the habit of war could be inhibited by 
 the influence of a nobler conception than human nature 
 has hitherto attained, the habit of peace would succeed 
 and, as a result, human nature would be changed, first in 
 its acts and then in its spirit.* 
 
 A practical way in which the churches might make their 
 influence felt in an effort to establish peace would be in 
 the matter of disarmament. There will be strong opposi- 
 tion and specious arguments to be met. Christian men in 
 army and navy, as noble, sincere, and devout as the late 
 Admiral Mahan, as well as greedy manufacturers of mu- 
 nitions, and ship-builders, employing thousands of work- 
 men, will not be slack in advocating the continuance 
 of what they will claim to be essential for national se- 
 curity. For the moment they may keep silent because 
 they think the time unpropitious, but when the news- 
 papers have taken up a new cause and public sentiment 
 has begun to subside, they will again make themselves 
 heard, in books and magazines, as well as in the lobby 
 of Congress. Let us hope, however, that never again 
 will they have the help of the churches. Of one thing 
 I think we may be sure, and that is that we shall not soon 
 again hear such sermons as we once heard from preach- 
 ers on the *' strong man armed." The irony of that parable 
 is, I think, being at last appreciated. A reading of the 
 context has shown that the "strong man," who we were 
 assured by preachers, both clerical and lay, should be our 
 example, is Beelzebub ! "The strong man armed keepeth 
 his palace and his goods are at peace.'' It did not need the 
 Divine Teacher to convince us of that obvious fact. But 
 
 * If any one is inclined to think that this is the opinion of senti- 
 mentalists, let him read Huxley's "Romanes Lecture," 1893. 
 
THE TASK OF THE CHURCHES 35 
 
 it did need One speaking with authority to tell us what it 
 seems so difficult to learn, the inevitable fate of the strong 
 man who trusts in his armor. "His goods are in peace, 
 until a stronger than he shall come upon him and over- 
 come him and take from him all his armor and divide his 
 spoils." What a commentary on this is found in the fate 
 of Germany and its Kaiser ! What modem nation has so 
 trusted in its armor, and what so grievously spoiled ! That 
 must always be the fate of such a strong man armed. His 
 very armor in which he trusts is his undoing; it is an incen- 
 tive to others to surpass him in armaments. 
 
 Is it not time for the church to "put to silence the igno- 
 rance of foolish men" who prate about the necessity for 
 dreadnoughts and lethal gasses for national security? 
 "Who will harm you if you do that which is right ?" Per- 
 haps some man may attempt to do so, and it may be the 
 duty of the nation to defend itself from attack, but how 
 much more likely is such an attack to come if it be seen 
 that instead of doing right we are preparing to do wrong ! 
 
 In these two ways, then, by the furtherance of a Chris- 
 tian internationalism and the disarmament of the world, 
 can the church make its influence felt so as profoundly to 
 afifect its primary work of the evangelization of the world. 
 
 But there are questions at home which must receive the 
 attention of the churches if the nation is to be an example 
 to the world. To only two of these will I call attention. 
 
 Let us consider first the condition of the family in 
 America to-day. I am aware that there are many wise 
 men who will say that any consideration of the task of the 
 churches should begin with the industrial problem. I am 
 not ignorant of its importance, but I have thought it best 
 not to deal with it here because, among other reasons, it is 
 a political question, and would lead inevitably to a dis- 
 cussion of Socialism, which, being a theory of political 
 economy, has no more place in tiis book than has the 
 tariff, though the tariff, as well as the industrial struggle, 
 
36 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 has its ethical side. Those who feel the importance of the 
 humanizing of industry have, in my opinion, made a mis- 
 take in insisting that it can be done only by the accep- 
 tance of some particular method of government or indus- 
 trial management. It can be done under any form of gov- 
 ernment and with any organization, if the truth of human 
 brotherhood is borne in mind, and there is where the task 
 of the churches, in this particular, should begin and end. 
 
 There are States in which, it is asserted, the number of 
 divorces to marriages is as high as 48 per cent. This is no 
 doubt exceptionally large; but who that knows the facts in 
 our social Ufe generally throughout the country can fail to 
 see that there has come an entirely new thought of mar- 
 riage ? I do not deny that in some respects the new is 
 better than the old, nor would I go to the extreme of those 
 who would deny divorce in all circumstances. But can it 
 be denied that many of the divorces are preventable, that 
 in not a few of the cases brought before the courts there 
 are fraud and collusion, perjured detectives, and many 
 other disgusting evils which are spread broadcast by the 
 press, and that, as a result, the ideal of the family is being 
 destroyed ? 
 
 There are many reasons which have led to this state of 
 affairs, but the underlying one, I think, is that with the 
 increase in the sense of individual value, there has been no 
 corresponding sense of responsibility to the community. 
 In the Marriage Service of the Episcopal Church there is a 
 rubric to which attention is too seldom called: "Then . . . 
 the Man shall give unto the Woman a Ring. And the 
 Minister taking the Ring shall deliver it unto the Man, to 
 put it upon the fourth finger of the Woman's left hand." 
 That ancient rubric, which seems to have only an archaic 
 interest, is, indeed, the witness to the difference between a 
 civil and a religious marriage. In the eye of the law a 
 marriage is a contract between two parties, but by the 
 church it is conceived as a contract in which three parties 
 
THE TASK OF THE CHURCHES 37 
 
 are concerned — the man and the woman and humanity. 
 The ideal humanity is represented by the church, and the 
 church is represented by the parson, or person of the 
 church; the ring then must pass through his hands, and so 
 emphasize the truth that there is a duty on the part of the 
 married to humanity. When, then, one cries, "Have I 
 not a right to develop my life in the way that seems to me 
 best?'' the answer should be that by marriage the liberty 
 of the individual has been curtailed. But this is not pecu- 
 liar to marriage. Every responsibihty is a limitation of 
 liberty. The man or the woman who has entered into the 
 marriage state has thereby limited his or her Uberty. This 
 is one of the fundamental doctrines of "natural" religion. 
 How much greater is the responsibility of the Christian! 
 How is this to be brought home to the individual except 
 by the united witness of the church ? But at present the 
 churches are impotent because, while each has a certain 
 social value, they are unable to bring the united moral 
 judgment of Christian people to bear on a particular case. 
 The woman who declares that "a wonderful thing has 
 come into her life," which wonderful thing is a lust for one 
 who is not her husband, and who, in consequence, aban- 
 dons husband and children, may be condemned in one 
 church, but she soon finds a home in another and is re- 
 ceived into "good society." The truth is, these women 
 are many of them unconscious that there is anything 
 improper in their conduct, because the pressure of public 
 opinion has been relaxed. If the evil ended with the fate 
 of the woman who has done wrong, the danger might be 
 disregarded. But these women are carriers of disease. 
 Young girls talk of the splendid courage of the woman who 
 has wrecked her home as if she were a Joan of Arc, and 
 think that she is an example to be followed. 
 
 Not a few earnest men beheve that a federal law would 
 check the evil. This might, or might not, be a help. But 
 what a confession of impotence is it on the part of the 
 
38 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 churches to admit that the one thing they claim they 
 ought to be called upon to administer — ^marriage — they 
 are unable to control ! Let the ministers of all the churches 
 begin to educate the young by showing the spiritual mean- 
 ing of Christian marriage — that it is the sacrament of love, 
 that is, of self-sacrifice — and marriage will be approached 
 more in the spirit in which it should be approached — "not 
 unadvisedly or lightly, but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, 
 soberly, and in the fear of God." It is too often thought 
 of as a social exhibition. The clergy are not infrequently 
 asked to be present at a "rehearsal." If it be thought 
 desirable for the bridal party to go to the church and note 
 where they are to stand in order that they may not be 
 perplexed at the solemn moment of the service, there can 
 be no objection, but what shall we say of a "rehearsal" 
 at which the minister takes part, and, as I have heard, 
 "tries his voice" and asks to be told if he can be dis- 
 tinctly heard when he uses this or that tone, as he thinks 
 will be most impressive ? The frivolity of ministers is not 
 without influence in the popular opinion of marriage, which 
 has made it more and more a social function, and less and 
 less a solemn dedication of two lives to one another. 
 
 But more is needed than instruction before marriage 
 and a reverent administration of the rite. The churches 
 must exercise their commission to bind as well as to loose. 
 Let aU the churches unite in an effort to make effective the 
 moral judgment of Christians, and treat the man or the 
 woman — and too often it is the woman — who has broken 
 up the family and abandoned children and entered into an 
 adulterous connection as a "heathen and a publican," and 
 it would not be long before there was a change in our 
 social standards and a purer atmosphere for our children 
 to breathe. 
 
 Turn now from the family to the schools. Our fathers 
 established schools and colleges in this wilderness for the 
 formation of Christian character. Can it be claimed that 
 
THE TASK OF THE CHURCHES 39 
 
 this is the purpose which animates the school committees 
 and the boards of education and trustees of colleges ? It 
 is instruction which is the aim of schools to-day. But in- 
 struction is a means to an end. If that end be not the 
 formation of character, what is the end ? Education was 
 at one time in the hands of the church. It is not well 
 that it should be left there to-day. But that does not 
 mean that the church has no duty in the premises. The 
 Roman Catholic Church feels that duty, and is establishing 
 parochial schools at great expense, in order that the true 
 end of education, as that church conceives it, should be 
 attained. We do not believe that Christian character is to 
 be identified with the ideal of any particular church, but 
 if we do not believe that Christian character is the pur- 
 pose of education, what do we believe ? 
 
 This is not a Christian country, and it would not be 
 right to use the money collected by taxation for the prop- 
 agation of even the Christian faith in the public schools. 
 But is it impossible to have some form of worship which 
 would impress upon the thousands of children who assem- 
 ble each day in our public schools that "in God they live 
 and move and have their being" ? Would any appreciable 
 number of parents object to the reading of a passage from 
 the Old Testament, one day in the King James version, 
 another in the Douai, and another in the English transla- 
 tion of the Old Testament put forth by the Hebrews? 
 Could we not all recite the Lord's Prayer ? Are there not 
 passages from the New Testament wtdch all would gladly 
 learn ? This, perhaps, would be all that could be admitted 
 to the public schools of the great cities, with their heteroge- 
 neous population; but surely there are numbers of Gentile 
 communities in which the children who salute the flag 
 might also salute the cross. The difficulty which con- 
 fronts us in the public schools is not absent from the State 
 colleges and imiversities. But many of the greatest uni- 
 versities in the land are built on private, Christian, Protes- 
 
40 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 tant foundations, not a few of them primarily for the edu- 
 cation of ministers of the gospel. Is it too much for the 
 churches to ask that the trust funds should be admin- 
 istered with that in mind? In some of the universities 
 that is explicitly acknowledged. In others it is no doubt 
 implicit and subconscious. But, as a matter of fact, a 
 boy may be matriculated and graduated from one of the 
 universities endowed by Christian piety and never hear 
 the name of Jesus nor the story of the church, unless he 
 seeks to hear. We forget that there are thousands who 
 are as ignorant of Jesus and his church as if they had gone 
 to the University of Athens before Jesus was bom. There 
 are great numbers of Jewish youth in Christian colleges 
 who know no more about Jesus than the average Protes- 
 tant youth knows about Ignatius Loyola. What must be 
 the impression made upon scholars from Japan and China 
 and India who pass four years in one of the great universi- 
 ties of America and never hear a word from those in 
 authority which would lead them to believe that they are 
 Christian men? Have not the churches a right to ask 
 that in the entrance examination there should be required 
 some knowledge of the Bible — net as a literary work of 
 art; that, perhaps, has been overdone — ^but as the most 
 precious treasury of the spiritual experience of the world ? 
 Have they not a right to ask that there should be some 
 knowledge of the life of Jesus, from those who are entering 
 upon Christian education? Have they not a right — ^is it 
 not their duty — to demand that in the allocation of trust 
 funds for the various departments, the chapel shall be con- 
 sidered as important as the law school or the gymnasium ? 
 We cannot afford to let things drift. There are complaints 
 that paganism is invading all the places of higher educa- 
 tion, but we seem to have forgotten PauFs ironic remark: 
 "How shall they believe if they have not heard?'* 
 
 The whole problem of education is too large and too 
 difficult to be solved in any offhand way. But it is a 
 
THE TASK OF THE CHURCHES 41 
 
 problem which the churches should never forget nor cease 
 to seek to solve. The fatal thing would be to accept pres- 
 ent conditions as if they were final or inevitable. 
 
 The evangelization of the world, the Christianizing of 
 international relations, the reign of peace, the purification 
 of the family, and the upbuilding of Christian character by 
 education are the first and most important tasks of the 
 churches to-day. These are not all. There is our political 
 life to be purified and our social life to be refined, and, 
 above all, our industrial life to be humanized. With the 
 exception of foreign missions and Christian education, most 
 serious-minded men will agree that these are the things 
 which must be done. All Christians will agree that all 
 these things must be done, but some of them may be in- 
 clined to say that the outlook is not so threatening as it 
 has been represented here to be, and others that even if it 
 be, it is not the task of the churches but of humanity itself. 
 Of the latter aspect of the subject, I shall have something 
 to say later; for the moment let it be held in abeyance. 
 But that the time is short in which the task must at least 
 be begun, I firmly believe. 
 
 "Except that the Lord had shortened those days, no 
 flesh should be saved: but for the elect's sake whom He 
 hath chosen, he hath shortened the days." * How the sol- 
 emn words, which perhaps meant little to us in the past, 
 now flame out with dreadful significance, as did the hand- 
 writing on the wall, foretelling the fall of one of the great 
 empires of the world! The prophet said: "Thou art 
 weighed in the balance and found wanting." What is true 
 of the nations is true of the churches. It is the vice of 
 chauvinism in the churches — though we call it sectarianism 
 — ^which is the cause for their weakness in this crisis of the 
 world and of the churches. How, then, can they cure the 
 evil from which they themselves suffer ? "Physician, heal 
 thyself," may well be said to each of them. Can any one 
 * Mark 13 : 20, 
 
42 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 of the Protestant churches claim that it is equal to the 
 stupendous task ? Is any one of them alone able to change 
 hirnian nature? We have only to look at the conditions 
 of the churches to-day to see how impossible it is for the 
 miracle to be worked without repentance; that is, a change 
 of mind on the part of Christian men in regard to the 
 church, its mission and its task. 
 
 The time has been shortened for the elect's sake; not 
 that the elect may continue to live as they have done in 
 the past, "at ease in Sion," but that through the elect the 
 way of God may be made known among men, not only 
 spacially in the uttermost parts of the earth, but also 
 spiritually in every relation of Hfe. Has not the parable of 
 Jonah a message to the modern church ? 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 SECTARIANISM 
 
 A. Protestant 
 
 The word "churches" is used here as it is used in the 
 Preface to the Book of Common Prayer, to designate "the 
 different religious denominations in these States." It does 
 not include the Eastern nor the Roman Catholic churches. 
 Therefore, when "sectarianism" is spoken of it is the sec- 
 tarianism of the various religious denominations in this 
 land that we are to have in mind. Whether sectarianism 
 is confined to the Protestant churches is a question to be 
 touched on later. At present I would call attention to the 
 ecclesiastical condition in the towns and cities of the land, 
 for in that way, I think, we can best discover the nature 
 of sectarianism and its effects. I say "ecclesiastical" 
 rather than "religious," because the two are not conter- 
 minous. 
 
 Even those of us whose homes are in one of the great 
 cities have some acquaintance with coimtry life. What, 
 then, let us ask, is the condition of the churches in the 
 average village in this country ? I have one in mind which 
 I have been led to believe from the testimony of many men 
 is typical of most of the small towns. I do not know the 
 exact population of the village of which I am now speak- 
 ing, but I doubt if it has more than a thousand inhabi- 
 tants. The old white meeting-house, "set upon a hill," 
 was once the religious home of the entire conamunity. But 
 the youth has drifted to the cities or trekked to the West, 
 and those who are left have lost the early vigor which once 
 made the village an important factor in the life of the 
 State. The newcomers have never felt the tradition of the 
 
 43 
 
44 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 past, and the tone of the community is no longer what it 
 once was. There is more comfort in the houses and more 
 wealth in the community, but the ideals have changed, or, 
 rather, the old ideals have passed away, and there have 
 been none that can be called "ideals" to take their place. 
 
 There are now one Roman Catholic and four Protestant 
 churches in that town. No one of them, except the Roman 
 CathoUc, had more than fifty worshippers on any Sunday 
 morning when I was present — though two of the Protes- 
 tant churches, at least, could have seated the whole church- 
 going population. But it was not the smallness but the 
 character of the congregation which made a distressing im- 
 pression. Most of them were old people, there were a few 
 children — and I pitied them ! The young, vigorous life of 
 the community was absent. Some had gone fishing, some 
 were saiHng, some were playing golf, and not a few simply 
 loafed. I do not express any opinion on the religious life 
 of the absentees; I am only calling attention to the condi- 
 tion of the churches. 
 
 Each minister, I soon learned, was living on a pittance a 
 choreman would have scorned, and could with difficulty 
 pay his weekly bills. One was not a "settled" minister, 
 but was "hired"; coming from a near-by town on Satur- 
 day evening and returning Monday morning. One of the 
 deacons called my attention to the economic advantage of 
 this arrangement. I asked one of my acquaintances, a 
 substantial man in the community, to which of the churches 
 he went? He replied: "To none of them. I subscribe to 
 each of them, for the only way they can live is by having 
 oyster-suppers in the winter and a strawberry festival in 
 summer, to which every one is expected to go, no matter 
 to which church he belongs. The only one that amounts 
 to a row of pins is the Catholic church." 
 
 Yet this is in the heart of New England ! We need not 
 accept my friend's judgment as final. No doubt every one 
 of those churches is doing some good. There are old peo- 
 
SECTARIANISM 45 
 
 pie who have the remembrance of early teaching kept alive 
 in their hearts; there are those in sorrow who are being 
 comforted, and, let us hope, some who are receiving in- 
 spiration to lead a godly life. But when all has been said 
 that can be said in favor of these churches, is it not true 
 that they are rather of the nature of convalescent homes 
 than vigorous agencies for the evangelization of the world 
 and upbuilding of strong Christian character ? 
 
 In the larger towns things are apparently somewhat bet- 
 ter. But the ' ixiovies" and now Sunday baseball are mak- 
 ing the problem of church attendance more and more diffi- 
 cult. Those who consider the effect of habitual "assem- 
 bling of ourselves together" cannot but feel apprehensive 
 of the future in which the yoimg will have grown up with- 
 out the influence which they feel has been most potent in 
 their own lives. 
 
 Not a few of the younger generation who still attend 
 church, because their parents wish them to do so, are ask- 
 ing for a reason for the continuance of a custom which 
 seems to have no meaning to them. They are willing to 
 admit that in the past the church has been a vital factor 
 in life, but they question if there is the same need for it 
 to-day as there was in the days when books were few and 
 there was no other means of enlightenment. But when 
 they are asked to suggest some other means of instructing 
 and inspiring people, they have to admit that they do not 
 know of any. They would retain the ethics and the ideals 
 of Jesus, but they are sceptical of the institution which 
 claims to be the exclusive means of keeping these alive. 
 And yet, who does not know that the pressure of Kfe is so 
 strong that if there be not some day set apart for the 
 remembrance of those truths and ideals, they are in danger 
 of evaporating? The church is needed, but not neces- 
 sarily the kind of church which sufficed in the days of old. 
 Such churches as are found in many of the villages and 
 towns have not the respect of the community, and cannot 
 
46 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 speak with authority on the vital questions that men are 
 asking to-day. They therefore cannot be called the moral 
 guides of the people. Yet, that guidance is needed, who 
 can doubt? "The Great White Way'' of the large cities 
 may be more dramatic in its wickedness than the sin of 
 the small town, but the small towns are sometimes morally 
 corrupt. Many of the degenerates found in the streets of 
 the cities fell from grace in the small country town. Often 
 the social life is drab and dispiriting. I am told that the 
 vices of the rich fools who come into the country during 
 the summer months are imitated by the youth when the 
 visitors have gone. The day was when the cities were fed 
 by the youth from the country, but now the country is 
 becoming more and more dependent upon the city. The 
 country town has lost its initiative. It was the country 
 church which gave vitality to the village, and nothing but 
 the church will restore it. But the power to effect such 
 a reformation does not seem to licrin the churches as they 
 are to-day. 
 
 When we turn to the great cities, the churches seem to 
 be more alive. There is better music; the congregations 
 are larger, and there is apparently more life. But there 
 are few churches in the cities which are not larger than 
 they need be for the congregations which worship in them 
 — and there is another church, a block away, in the same 
 condition. Each of these churches is a costly affair, and 
 as a result of competition there is arising a problem which 
 cannot fail to affect the life of the church at large, and 
 that is the ever-increasing cost of church attendance. It 
 is true that there are more so-called "free" churches than 
 there were formerly, but many agree that they are not so 
 weU adapted to "family" worship as were the old "pew" 
 churches. Not a few young married people who would be 
 glad to attend church in the cities find themselves embar- 
 rassed to meet the constant demands which the minister 
 must make in order to keep in good standing in his denomi- 
 
SECTARIANISM 47 
 
 nation. Many young married people send their children 
 to Sunday-school, but they themselves have no regular 
 place of worship, and say frankly that they cannot afford 
 to have one. Possibly some serious students of the Ref- 
 ormation have been amused by Mr. Brooks Adams's dog- 
 matic dictum that the early success of Protestantism was 
 due to economic causes — ^it was found to be a cheaper form 
 of religion ! But there .aay be more in the suggestion than 
 we care to admit; and it may come to pass, in our day, 
 that the Roman Catholic Church will underwrite eternal 
 life-insurance policies at a rate which will put Protestant 
 companies out of business, unless we reduce our excessive 
 assessments. 
 
 At any rate, it is the economic waste in the churches 
 which has attracted the attention of some of those good 
 men who, knowing that the elimination of waste has been 
 the source of wealth in business, are shocked by the ex- 
 travagance which is so characteristic of the churches. 
 "Why," say these men, "cannot the churches 'get to- 
 gether' and pool their assets and liabilities.'*" This is a 
 natural question from men who have seen the great advan- 
 tage which, in spite of evident lawlessness in the past on 
 the part of some organizations, has revolutionized our in- 
 dustrial life. But great as would be the advantage of 
 some readjustment of our ecclesiastical affairs, the Ameri- 
 can people are not going to enter any religious "trust." 
 They have lost too much individual initiative in the eco- 
 nomic and political life to abandon what is left in the eccle- 
 siastical. No doubt economy is a desirable thing and pre- 
 ventable waste should, if possible, be checked; but those 
 who think that economy alone will be the deciding factor 
 in the life of the churches have forgotten how idealistic 
 Americans are, and that no matter what the price, they 
 will have what they want. Many are convinced that their 
 church stands for some principle which is essential to the 
 well-being of the body of Christ. Each believes this of the 
 
48 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 church to which he belongs, but finds it hard to beheve the 
 same of any other. There is where sectarianism lurks. 
 Sectarianism is not separation into different groups to keep 
 alive a vital truth which seems to have been forgotten by 
 others, or to worship God in a way which is congenial to 
 those who gather together; it is the spirit which denies 
 that each of these groups is bearing witness to a forgotten 
 or unacknowledged truth which the whole body must re- 
 ceive before the work of the particular group will have 
 been finished. The Puritan spirit which has permeated all 
 the churches finds its charter in the inspired hymn of 
 Simeon: "We being delivered out of the hand of our ene- 
 mies, may serve Him without fear.*' 
 
 It is iJie recognition of this truth which must be the 
 first step taken by Christian people before there can be 
 any effective unity. When that step has been taken, I 
 believe that it will be found that some of the churches 
 have finished their work and might well be consolidated 
 with some one of the others. How it is to be decided 
 which of these churches shall give up its separate exist- 
 ence is a question to be dealt with later. For the present 
 it is only necessary to say that it will be that church whose 
 truth has been received by the other churches. What 
 should be insisted upon at the moment is only that the 
 churches are called upon to face the facts of life, and that 
 one of these facts is that the Protestant churches are losing 
 influence. 
 
 I have talked on this subject with serious-minded people 
 who, though they lament it, are convinced that the future 
 religious life of this country will be found in the Roman 
 Catholic Church, because they think that it is the only 
 church which is not a sect. I do not believe they are right, 
 but I do think that we are* not justified in dismissing the 
 suggestion as if there were no danger to Protestantism, or 
 as if it were not true that the source of that danger is the 
 deadly sin of schism. 
 
SECTARIANISM 49 
 
 If we look to the country districts, which were once the 
 strongholds of Protestantism, we may be surprised to find 
 the gains which the Roman Catholic Church has made in 
 recent years. It is commonly supposed that this is due 
 entirely to immigration. But that is a mistake. I have in 
 mind one New England township, where twenty years ago 
 there were seven Baptist churchei. It is a scattered com- 
 mimity, and as there are but two "settlements," probably 
 two churches were needed. But seven ! And those varie- 
 ties of one particular church! With the arrival of the 
 summer visitors in that commimity, there arose a demand, 
 first for an Episcopal church, to enable the people in the 
 "cottages" to have the service with which they were 
 familiar, and which their children could follow; then came 
 a demand for a Roman Catholic church, to minister to 
 the Irish and French servants and the "help" at the hotel, 
 and possibly to one or two Catholic families among the 
 "cottage" folk. The money needed was soon subscribed 
 — almost entirely by Protestants. A C5niic may suggest 
 that this was due less to care for the religious welfare of 
 the servants than to the knowledge that if there were no 
 Catholic church there would soon be no servants; but I 
 believe that a more generous and truer statement would 
 be that this money was largely given by those who felt 
 that members of the Roman Catholic faith had a right to 
 the ministration of the rites and sacraments of their church 
 even though they were too poor to pay for them — and that, 
 therefore, the money of Protestants was given. It waa 
 supposed that the Catholic church would be closed dur- 
 ing the winter months, as are the Episcopal church and 
 the hotel. But so far from that, four of the Baptist 
 churches have been closed, and the Catholic church is 
 ministering to a congregation smaller, it is true, in the 
 winter than in the summer, but still larger than can be 
 found in any of the Protestant churches in that commu- 
 nity. How has that come about? By the conversion of 
 
so THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 the "natives"? Not of one, so far as I know. But not 
 a few nice Irish and French girls, who came as waitresses 
 and maids, married the young men of the village, and, of 
 course, their children — of those there are not a few — are 
 being brought up in the faith of the mother, partly because 
 the father had no faith of any sort. I do not think we 
 ought to begrudge the smile with which I suspect the good 
 priest who built that church with Protestant money made 
 his report to his bishop. Now the same thing is going on 
 in every part of the country. 
 
 When we turn to the large cities we find that hundreds 
 of children of Protestant parents are taken charge of by 
 Roman Catholic orphan asylums and foundling hospitals; 
 some are receiving them from the courts because the chil- 
 dren are left without a natural protector. These are but 
 rivulets, it is true, but when we add to those the large 
 influx of immigrants, we cannot fail to be impressed by the 
 rapid growth of the Catholic Church. Well, he whom Gib- 
 bon liked to refer to as the "philosopher" may ask: "Is 
 this a thing to regret? If Protestantism has failed to 
 appeal to iJie people and hold them in allegiance, why 
 should it be thought a misfortune that the Roman Catholic 
 Church, which started the race in this country so heavily 
 handicapped, should now win the prize ? Is it not due to 
 the self-denying activity of priests and people ? Is it not 
 due to the fact that she has spoken with no uncertain 
 sound? If Protestantism has failed, would you rather 
 have this country become Catholic or pagan ?" Of course 
 there can be but one answer to that question which a 
 religious man could give. The celebrated and eloquent 
 Father Vaughan is reported to have said in Montreal in 
 1910 that Catholics will control the United States. "From 
 what I hear of conditions in the United States, the Catho- 
 lics will soon control that country through force of num- 
 bers. Christian fecundity is fighting sterile paganism, and 
 the battle for the possession of the world will soon be nar- 
 
SECTARIANISM 51 
 
 rowed to the Catholic Church and the destructive forces of 
 agnosticism. Protestantism is disappearing." 
 
 We do not believe that Protestantism is disappearing. 
 But it is certainly true that if it should disappear or lose 
 its power, the Roman Catholic Church wou^«- triumph 
 over paganism. If indeed that is the alternative, I do not 
 think we should delay to return to the bosom of the mother 
 church from which we have wandered. But before tak- 
 ing that desperate step — which a few take every year, 
 but which the American people in general have as yet 
 shown no intention of taking — ^it might be well for us seri- 
 ously ^to consider just what this would mean. And in so 
 doing, I hope it will be believed that I am far from wishing 
 to stir up religious hatred or to belittle the many services 
 to the cause of true religion which the Roman Catholic 
 Church has rendered in this land. We owe a great debt 
 to the Roman Catholic Church. Were it to withdraw 
 from the great cities, crime would increase by geometrical 
 progression. It is the religious arm of the police. It 
 stands for law and order in the community. There are 
 self-denying priests in that communion who put to shame 
 the self-indulgence of some of our Protestant ministers; 
 there are saintly nuns and Sisters of Charity who are fol- 
 lowing in the footsteps of our Saviour; there are multitudes 
 of earnest and devout communicants who are living beau- 
 tiful lives, understanding little, it may be, of the dogmas 
 of the church, but content to leave them to those who, 
 they have been taught to believe, do know. It seems to 
 them no more necessary for the laity to know what the 
 priest is administering than it is for the patient in the hos- 
 pital to know what the Latin prescription of the doctor 
 means. Both are doing good and they trust them. All 
 this we should rejoice in, but it does not follow that we 
 should imitate their example and place our souls in the 
 keeping of the priest. 
 
 But we cannot afford to drift. We must look facts in 
 
52 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 the face and act. What would happen if the Protestant 
 conception of religion were to perish from the earth ? Sup- 
 pose the whole nation were given over to secularism, 
 there can be no doubt that the disintegration of manners, 
 which all refined people regret, would be followed by a dis- 
 integration of morals. But if that were to follow, then 
 would come the dreadful famine foretold by the prophet: 
 **Not a famine for bread nor a thirst for water, but of hear- 
 ing the words of the Lord." * What would be the next 
 step? Man is "incurably religious," and if our children 
 lose the religion which they have inherited they will have 
 to have some religion. What will that be ? There can be 
 no such thing as a "new" religion. Whatever it may be 
 called, it will have its roots in some religion which has 
 been found helpful in the past. But our whole Western 
 civilization is built upon the religion of Jesus. Some form 
 of that will be the only possible one. But if Protestantism 
 be discarded, the only form left will be the Roman Catho- 
 lic. If we take history as our guide, we may forecast the 
 future with a certain confidence. We know what hap- 
 pened after the Reformation. At first it looked as if all 
 Europe would adopt the Reformed religion, but in less 
 than a hundred years that made no further conquests and 
 lost much that it had gained. We know how the " Counter- 
 Reformation" came about — first, by a reformation in the 
 morals of the Catholic clergy, which was largely due to the 
 influence of Protestantism, and, secondly, through the or- 
 ganization of the company of Jesuits, who through the 
 education of children and the secret power of the confes- 
 sional insinuated themselves into the secret life of the 
 conmiunity. It may be said: "This is ancient history." 
 Well, there is a modem instance which is even more in- 
 structive. In the last twenty years the increase in the 
 membership in the Roman Catholic Church in Germany 
 has been great. In the very lands where Luther preached, 
 
 * Amos 8 ; 2. 
 
SECTARIANISM 53 
 
 thousands of Protestants, in the last twenty years, have 
 returned to the Roman Catholic fold. Why? Because, 
 though they clung to the Protestant doctrine of individual 
 freedom, they had lost the corresponding sense of ,. ersonal 
 responsibility, and when they lost that sense of personal 
 responsibiHty and turned the church over to the state, the 
 state gave them in return just what it thought was bene- 
 ficial to them as members of the state. But the soul of 
 man cried out for the Hving God; Protestantism was un- 
 able to supply the religious need of the people, and the 
 Roman Catholic Church came in and supplied it. 
 
 Is that to be the history of this country in the next 
 century ? It is quite within the bounds of possibility. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 SECTARIANISM 
 
 B, Catholic 
 
 In the preceding chapter an attempt was made to ana- 
 lyze the meaning of sectarianism as it appears in the Prot- 
 estant churches. We believe that the increase in the 
 power of the Roman Catholic Church in American life is 
 largely due to the weakness of the Protestant churches, 
 and that unless that weakness can be overcome by some 
 genuine religious co-operation among the Protestant 
 churches — the result of true spiritual unity — the Roman 
 Catholic Church may dominate the religious life of this 
 country. This danger not a few men foresee. Some be- 
 lieve that it can be prevented by the denunciation of the 
 Roman Catholic Church on the part of Protestant bigots; 
 others, that what is needed is a political party boimd to- 
 gether by a secret understanding that no Catholic shall be 
 elected to public office. Indeed, it is an open secret that 
 in certain of the States where the Protestant feeling is 
 strong, no man can be elected to public office who is not 
 approved by one of the strong Protestant churches, just 
 as in other States it is almost impossible for a man to at- 
 tain certain offices without the approval of the Roman 
 Catholic Church. 
 
 The spirit of Christ should prevent this; no de- 
 nunciation of a church which, when its shortcomings and 
 faults have been admitted, is trying to bring people to the 
 discipleship of Christ can be justified. It will only serve 
 to consolidate the Roman Catholic Church and prevent 
 the many people in it who are dissatisfied with the autoc- 
 racy of the priests from asserting their innate American 
 
 54 
 
SECTARIANISM 55 
 
 independence. While it is true that the Roman Catholic 
 Church claims something like 16,000,000 members, what 
 would not its membership be had it been able to retain 
 the children to the third and fourth generations ? ? re dis- 
 integration in the Roman Catholic Church as a result of 
 breathing the American atmosphere of independence is as 
 notable a sign of the times as is the increase in its mem- 
 bership by inmiigration and what Father Vaughan calls 
 "Christian fecundity." But alas, these Catholics who 
 have lapsed are of small value to the community. A few 
 (perhaps more than is generally known) enter each year 
 into the communion of one of the Protestant churches, but 
 most of them revert to paganism and not a few of them 
 take to crime. A more conciliatory spirit and a juster ap- 
 preciation of the merits and value of the Catholic Church 
 might be the means of saving many of them from such a 
 fate. 
 
 The history of this country ought to show us the futil- 
 ity of political organizations on a racial or sectarian basis. 
 If the Roman Catholic Church is not to become the domi- 
 nant religious influence in this country, it can only be by 
 the manifestation of such inspiring religious Hfe in the 
 Protestant brotherhood as will appeal to the imagination 
 and win the allegiance of earnest religious men. 
 
 With these thoughts in mind, let us turn now to a 
 consideration of the sectarian spirit as it appears in the 
 Roman Catholic Church. 
 
 The Roman Catholic Church as it is known to most of 
 us, and justly honored for its devout spirit, is the church 
 as revealed in the lives of those who have been trained by 
 it in England and Ireland and in the United States — that 
 is, in countries where the influence of Protestantism is 
 strong. What it is outside that influence we may see in 
 Central and South America, in Spain and in Italy before 
 the overthrow of the temporal power of the pope. If the 
 knowledge of God and of Jesus which has come to us 
 
$6 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 through the preaching of the word of God in the Protes- 
 tant churches were to be lost, then the Roman Catholic 
 Church would revert to its mediaeval form, and the hands 
 of the clock of time would be turned back and the work of 
 the Reformation would have to be done anew. Let any 
 man whose imagination is equal to the task picture to 
 himself what the religious life of this nation would be 
 dominated by the mediaeval church. The secrets of the 
 family would be poured into the ears of the priest; the 
 minds of the young poisoned by the suggestion of evil 
 through the confessional; every department of Hfe under 
 the direction of the priest; and the ^'mind," of which we are 
 so proud, told that it has nothing to do but to obey. The 
 people would be kept in a state of perpetual pupilage, and 
 when that had been attained there would follow the polit- 
 ical supervision of the life of the nation, as is the case in 
 Quebec to-day. Again I say that this may seem fantastic, 
 but consider what the state of the case is to-day wherever 
 Protestantism has not to be reckoned with. 
 
 This republic was founded by religious people and on 
 a religious basis. The very spirit of that religion was the 
 freedom of the individual and a deep and awful sense of 
 personal responsibiUty. Now the Roman Catholic Church 
 has an entirely different theory of the religious life. There 
 are three ways in which, as a political organization, it is 
 showing its influence in the life of the country. In the 
 first place, the education of the youth of the land was the 
 first care of the fathers of this country, and the establish- 
 ment of the public schools has been the one means that we 
 have had for preventing the severing of the people into 
 classes and for making a true democracy. That those 
 schools are open to criticism no serious-minded person can 
 doubt, but with all their faults they are the one great 
 democratic influence in this land, and would by the priests 
 of the Roman Catholic Church be put out of existence in 
 favor of the parochial schools. Efforts have been made in 
 
SECTARIANISM 57 
 
 some of the States to divide the taxes for education pro 
 rata among the different churches. The public schools 
 are spoken of as *' godless." Who does not know thi t it 
 is the Roman Catholic Church which prevents any re- 
 Kgious teaching not supervised by its priests in the schools ? 
 
 In the second place, the great problem of this country 
 for many years — and it is going to be greater in the years 
 to come — ^has been immigration. In the beginning it was 
 so necessary to have large immigration for the economic 
 needs of the country that we paid little attention to either 
 the intellectual or moral condition of those who came in. 
 Now in order that those people may be assimilated and 
 made a part of the country, the English language, spoken 
 and written, is of chief importance. But the archbishop of 
 St. Louis,* calling attention to this vast immigration, which, 
 as he says, is largely Roman Catholic and is destined to be 
 still more so in days to come, insists that these people 
 should be kept in the racial atmosphere in which they have 
 heretofore lived and encouraged to speak their own lan- 
 guage; in other words, he would perpetuate in this country 
 all those racial differences which have made Europe what 
 it is to-day. The result — ^it is not asserted that this is the 
 purpose — but the result would be that all over this coun- 
 try there would be communities of people absolutely un- 
 der the direction of the priests, as are the people of the 
 province of Quebec. But that would have a. repercussion 
 in Europe. We have seen in the last few years an attempt 
 made to stir up ill will between this country and England 
 over the Irish question. That Ireland has not in the past 
 had a "fair deal" from England a large number of Ameri- 
 cans are convinced. But when it was seen that this was 
 to be made a casus belli, the sympathies of America were 
 chilled. It was seen that the priests of the Roman Cath- 
 olic Church, most of whom are of Irish blood, were using 
 their influence to prevent the co-operation of England and 
 
 * "Rome's Idea of Americanization," The Torch, Feb. 15, 1921. 
 
S8 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 the United States; when we were told that it had been 
 England's purpose for centuries to substitute Protestant- 
 ism for Catholicism in Ireland, men began to ask them- 
 selves if there were not more than a desire to revenge an 
 ancient wrong in this agitation. It is a significant fact 
 that England is the only important country in Europe in 
 which an established church is still tolerated. In every 
 other country of importance the Roman Catholic Church 
 has been disestablished because it was found to be the en- 
 emy of democracy, while in Protestant England the church 
 is still a power in the Hfe of the nation. If, then, these two 
 great Protestant countries — England and America — could 
 be divided, the political ideals which they hold in common 
 might be made ineffective and in that way the triumph of 
 a discredited political theory of the domination of the 
 state by the Vatican might be enabled to gain some of the 
 ground which it had lost. But as long as the English- 
 speaking peoples can act together, there will be a continu- 
 ous progress in those ideals which are the essence of Prot- 
 estantism, viz., spiritual freedom accompanied by a deep 
 sense of personal responsibility. If then the Roman Cath- 
 olic Church, which has made the wrongs of Ireland a cause 
 for stirring up bad blood between England and the United 
 States, were able to capitalize all the causes of discontent 
 among the peoples who have come to this country from 
 Europe, the problem of Americanization would be greatly 
 confused. It is not too much to say that if the Roman 
 Catholic had dominion in this country, the republic of 
 Adams, Hamilton, and Jefferson would fail. 
 
 We have no right to find fault with the Roman Catholic 
 Church for its theory of political Ufe; it is to be assumed 
 that the priests are convinced that unless the country is 
 dominated by the church, the morality of the people is 
 endangered; but we are justified in saying that it is un- 
 American. Its success depends upon keeping the people in 
 a state of perpetual pupilage. It is a policy which arises 
 
SECTARIANISM 59 
 
 not out of the needs of the community but is dictated by 
 an Italian pope. Should it succeed — and with immigra- 
 tion and (if I were not misunderstood, I would add) with 
 women's suffrage it may succeed — then the republic is 
 doomed. 
 
 But if there could be co-operation among Protestants to 
 secure that which our fathers bequeathed to us, it would 
 be found that many devout Roman Catholics would unite 
 with us in the endeavor to perpetuate the liberty which is 
 as dear to some of them as it is to us. That this is not idle 
 speculation is shown by the fact that when an attempt 
 was made a few years ago, in the city of Boston, to dis- 
 tribute the school fund on a sectarian basis, it was de- 
 feated by a decisive majority, notwithstanding that Boston 
 is now a Roman Catholic city. A Protestant fellowship 
 which would create an atmosphere of true democracy 
 would be welcome to not a few of our Roman Catholic 
 fellow citizens. 
 
 Such considerations wiU have but little effect upon those 
 who feel that the glory of the "ages of faith'' as shown in 
 the splendor of Gothic architecture and the "visible 
 unity" of the church would be the cure for the "philistine" 
 Protestant attitude to art and the sectarianism which has 
 torn the body of Christ. But they are mistaken in two 
 respects: first, they are identifying mediaevaHsm with the 
 beautiful, and, secondly, are assuming that outward con- 
 formity is to be identified with spiritual unity. 
 
 The mediaeval mind revealed a form of extravagant in- 
 tellectualism which is akin to insanity. It was essentially 
 monastic, and had the church been able permanently to 
 dominate the world, the result would have been neither 
 beautiful nor wise. But 
 
 "Stone walls do not a prison make, 
 Nor iron bars a cage." 
 
 Neither the mind nor the body of men and women could 
 be permanently immured in a cloister. There swept over 
 
6o THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 the arid religious life of Europe in the Middle Ages a 
 great wave of emotionalism.* It took many forms, the 
 best known being the mission of St. Francis. To him came 
 the ** still small voice" of nature, a veritable benediction to 
 men who had been driven well-nigh frantic by the fear of 
 hell. The troubadours began to sing the joys of human 
 love; the Crusaders brought from the East both science and 
 art; modern literature began to speak in a language "un- 
 derstanded" by the people. To the church this seemed a 
 second barbaric invasion. It could not convert it, as it 
 had the former, so it compromised. The terror of God 
 and of the avenging Christ was tempered by the presenta- 
 tion for devotion of the ever-pitiful Mother of God. Human 
 love was turned to the love of the ideal woman, and science 
 and art were employed to build and enrich shrines of 
 beauty, not for the worship of the "one true God and Jesus 
 Christ whom he had sent," but for the adoration of Mary, 
 "ever Virgin, the Eternal Woman." f This was the in- 
 evitable reaction from monasricism. The towers and 
 fieches of these wonders of art are what we see, but the 
 spiritual foundations on which they were built we do not 
 see. We forget that the vast sums given for these glori- 
 ous buildings were given by those who hoped in this way 
 to placate the God whom they feared, not to adore the 
 Father whom they loved. 
 
 The cathedrals are the last monimients of the ages of 
 faith. Art and science soon emancipated themselves from 
 the domination of the church, and then chateaux for the 
 life of the family — alas, too often for the enjoyment of lust 
 — and splendid municipal buildings, fit symbols of the new 
 feeling of the glory of the civil life, engaged the energy of 
 architect and builder. These were some of the causes 
 which later produced what we call the Renaissance. To 
 this the Catholic Church succumbed. Nothing but a sec- 
 
 * See "The Medieeval Mind," H. O. Taylor, vol. I, pp. 349-350. 
 t See "Mont St. Michel and Chartres," Henry Adams. 
 
SECTARIANISM 6i 
 
 ond revolution, which we call the Reformation, saved the 
 world from the debauchery of sensuality to which the 
 Renaissance, uninspired by the religion of Jesus, to which 
 the church had succumbed, was tending. Leo X, one of 
 the most cultivated gentlemen of Europe, was as truly 
 a pagan as Alcibiades, yet he was the vicar of Christ; 
 Benvenuto Cellini was a "commimicant in good stand- 
 ing"!* 
 
 This second revolution the church lacked the spiritual 
 power to convert. Consequently it fell back upon the only 
 weapon left, which was persecution, a spirit which reached 
 its culmination in the Inquisition. But persecution is the 
 distinctive mark of sectarianism. Any company of men 
 who believe that they have an exclusive monopoly of the 
 truth of God will be driven by an inexorable logic to per- 
 secute those who oppose themselves to that truth. That 
 does not mean that they are necessarily devoid of the 
 spirit of kindliness — ^Torquemada may have been as gen- 
 tle in his personal feelings as any modern humanitarian; 
 just as doubtless many of the German soldiers whose ruth- 
 lessness shocked the world, were gentle and considerate in 
 their family lives. But when any man believes that he is 
 the official of an institution to which God has committed 
 the guidance of the world, and that without that guidance 
 the world must perish, he will feel justified in the employ- 
 
 * The Anglican was the only church in the sixteenth century which 
 seemed to understand the spiritual significance of the Renaissance. 
 The Roman Church was impotent to deal with it, because its highest 
 ideal of religion was expressed in the asceticism of the monastic life; 
 but the Elizabethan era showed that England had received the message 
 of the Renaissance. The joy of living inspired the Sea Rovers with the 
 spirit of adventure. The beauty of life shines through all the poetry of 
 that day, especially in that of Spenser and Shakespeare. But the King 
 James translation of the Bible shows the literary influence of the 
 Renaissance, and the compilation of the Book of Common Prayer is 
 the embodiment of the new thought of religion expressed not in ascet- 
 icism but in the fulness of life. Here is where the Renaissance, that in 
 many respects was a pagan revival, was also a recognition of the truth 
 that Christ had come to give life abundantly. 
 
62 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 ment of any means which will save the world. The Ger- 
 man would have saved it from lawlessness to Kultur; the 
 mediaevaHst would have saved it from an endless hell of 
 torture. The greater the salvation promised, the less will 
 be the horror of the means used to insure salvation; the 
 greater will seem the justification in their employment. 
 Even such a saint as Xavier believed that the Inquisition 
 was the only means of saving a world for which he was 
 willing to die. 
 
 It may be asked: "Does any sane man believe that the 
 American Catholic Church in this twentieth century would 
 re-establish the Inquisition ?" The answer is that there is 
 no such thing as an "American" Catholic Church. The 
 dominating power is a foreign pope, himself dominated by 
 the Jesuits, who are the embodiment of the mediaeval spirit 
 and are contemptuous of the spirit of the twentieth cen- 
 tury. At present the spirit of persecution is impotent be- 
 cause the spirit of toleration animates the governments of 
 the world, and they control the church. Therefore, there 
 is no danger of such persecutions as have stained the gar- 
 ments of the church in the past. But it does not follow 
 that this would continue were the modern spirit to become 
 impotent. We have only to look at the Balkans and at 
 Ireland to see what we owe to the spirit of toleration, which 
 John Hay called a "principle of international law and 
 eternal justice." 
 
 But tiiere is no need to dwell upon this, for no doubt it 
 will be said that it is the expression of prejudice. 
 
 Let us turn then to two statements — one from a distin- 
 guished historian of the Roman Catholic communion and 
 the other from a prelate of the papal household. 
 
 "The Inquisition is pecuKarly the weapon and peculiarly 
 the work of the popes. It stands out from all those things 
 in which they co-operated, followed, or assented, as the 
 distinctive feature of papal Rome. ... It is the principal 
 thing with which the papacy is identified and by which it 
 
SECTARIANISM 63 
 
 must be judged. The principle of the Inquisition is mur- 
 derous, and a man's opinion of the papacy is regulated 
 and determined by his opinion about religious assassina- 
 tion."* 
 
 "Some sons of darkness nowadays with dilated nostrils 
 and wild eyes inveigh against the intolerance of the Mid- 
 dle Ages. But let not us, blinded by that liberalism that 
 bewitches under the guise of wisdom, seek for silly little 
 reasons to defend the Inquisition! Let no one speak of 
 the condition of the times and intemperate zeal, as if the 
 church needed excuses. O, blessed flames of those pyres 
 by which a very few crafty and insignificant persons were 
 taken away that hundreds of hundreds of phalanxes of 
 souls should be saved from the jaws of error and eternal 
 damnation! O noble and venerable memory of Torque- 
 
 madai^'t 
 
 The latter quotation will excite the horror of some and 
 the risibles of others. Yet I think it not unfair to say that 
 both quotations represent the thought of different minds 
 in the Roman Catholic Church. 
 
 Protestants have, however, no right to boast as if their 
 fathers had not shared the delusion that error is identical 
 with heresy, and that it was better that "one man die than 
 that the whole nation perish." There is scarcely one of 
 the Reformers who was not guilty of bloodshed. But this 
 may be said with truth, that the Reformers carried over 
 that heresy from the mediaeval church, as they did much 
 else that it has taken time to shed, but they have not 
 gloried in their shame, nor would it be possible to find to- 
 day in any Protestant church a respectable man who would 
 declare persecution to be justified. Nor is this due to the 
 fact that they have become tolerant because they are in- 
 
 * " Lord Acton's Letters to Mary Gladstone," p. 298/., quoted in "The 
 Age of the Reformation," Preserved Smith, p. 643. 
 
 t C. Mirbt, "Quellen zur Geschichte des Papsttums," quoted in 
 ibid., p. 390. 
 
64 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 different, but because they have learned that error is 
 neither heresy nor sin. And because they have learned 
 this, they no longer look to the state to enforce uniformity 
 of belief or worship. They are living in a new world and 
 breathing a purer atmosphere. It was this better spirit 
 which animated our fathers when they endeavored to effect 
 a more perfect union under which the inalienable rights of 
 the individual might be secure. 
 
 Nor are those who dream of a revival of the ages of faith 
 less mistaken in their dream of unity. The divisions of 
 Protestantism can be matched in the Roman Catholic 
 Church in days of old and now. Franciscan and Domini- 
 can, Nominalist and Realist, Gallican and Ultramontane, 
 Jesuit and Port Royalist, Catholic and "Papalist" in Eng- 
 land, "American" and Irish Catholics in this land, show 
 that the inevitable groupings of men in congenial com- 
 panies is a perpetual social phenomenon. While all this 
 must be admitted by every student of history, it may be 
 urged that in the Roman Catholic Church this is mitigated 
 by the central authority, to which all must submit. If all 
 that is desired be uniformity, this is a complete answer; 
 but if we are seeking spiritual unity, it has little significance. 
 The meaning of conformity and its spiritual value can be 
 seen by a reading of the "Life of Cardinal Manning." * 
 Was there truer unity between Manning and Newman 
 when they had entered into the bosom of the mother church 
 than there had been in the days when they both were min- 
 isters of the Church of England? Those who say yes 
 should examine what they mean by unity. Henry Ward 
 Beecher, whose homely wit reminds us of Lincoln, was 
 once asked what he thought about the unity of the Catho- 
 lic Church. He said: "There is no more unity in the 
 Catholic Church than there is among Protestants. The 
 difference is like the life in the tenements and in the sep- 
 
 * See "Life of Cardinal Manning," S. Purcell, Member of the Roman 
 Academy of Letters. 
 
SECTARIANISM 65 
 
 arate houses in the village. The tenement may seem to 
 one outside to be the abode of peace, while it might seem 
 as if a riot were about to break out in the village, so great 
 is the noise. But if you went into the tenement, you would 
 find the tenants quarrelling on the stairs, just as the neigh- 
 bors in the village are disputing over the fence." 
 
 It is not outward conformity which constitutes unity 
 nor is it groupings into separate bodies which is of the 
 essence of schism. Schism is the spirit which first denies 
 that the word of God has come to any save those with 
 whom we find ourselves in agreement, and then persecutes 
 those who do not follow us. From the first sin no Protes- 
 tant church is entirely free; the second is ingrained in the 
 Roman CathoUc Church. It is quiescent now, but were 
 that church to become dominant in this land it would be 
 the triumph not of the One Catholic and Apostolic Church; 
 it would be the triumph of the greatest sect in the history 
 of the Christian church. Those who think that the cure 
 for sectarianism is to be found in the extension of the 
 Roman Catholic Church are deceived by outward appear- 
 ance. The cure must be found elsewhere. 
 
 A sentimental idealization of the Roman CathoKc Church 
 is characteristic not only of some religious people but of 
 not a few who, having failed to fulfil their obligations as 
 members of one of the Protestant churches, would like to 
 throw the responsibihty upon the church which would have 
 saved them and they "would not." They may decry 
 Protestantism and idealize the Catholic Church, but in so 
 doing they have left the firm ground of history and are 
 floating amidst the clouds of an imaginary emotion. They 
 might know that the Roman Catholic Church is essentially 
 static, and that does not mean, as is often supposed, that 
 it is truly conservative; it means that the people have been 
 kept in a state of perpetual pupilage and have not known 
 the days in which they are living. Its aestheticism is 
 pagan, not Christian. The mystic appeal in the sacrifice 
 
66 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 of the mass runs back, not to the new man but to the old 
 Adam, and is drawn from the "mystery'' religions which 
 themselves run back to the primitive animism which could 
 feed on the very flesh of the god. The power of the mediae- 
 val church lay not in the institution, with its insistence 
 upon force, but upon the cross which it lifted up, and so 
 drew men to Christ himself. Its discipline, which it is the 
 fashion to applaud among those who have lost faith in 
 democracy, is autocratic, and would use democracy for 
 the re-establishment of a discredited autocracy. These 
 are not pleasant things to say, but they are true, and 
 ought to be said if thereby the Church of Christ can be 
 saved. 
 
 If the foregoing be a true, even though to some it may 
 seem too dark a picture, both of the world and of the church, 
 we shall be compelled to confess that neither the Roman 
 Catholic Church nor any one of the Protestant churches 
 alone, nor any superficial confederation of the churches can 
 accomplish the task of evangelizing the world, spiritualizing 
 civilization, and keeping alive that conception of the gos- 
 pel which the Reformation brought to light after the dark- 
 ness which fell upon the world after the fall of the Roman 
 Empire, upon which, we believe, the welfare of the repub- 
 lic depends. If we do not wish to drift out to the sea of 
 controversy and lose sight of all landmarks of reality, we 
 shall do well to confine ourselves for the present to the 
 practical problem of Protestant unity. For, if the mission 
 of the church is to evangehze the world and its task is the 
 spiritualization of civilization, and we admit, as we must, 
 that neither of these things is being done as it should be 
 done, we are driven to ask: "What is the cause of the weak- 
 ness of the churches ? " The reason often given is that it 
 is because the church is broken up into the many churches. 
 But if we probed deeper we might find that it is no external 
 division which weakens the church. It is the spirit of sec- 
 tarianism, which paralyzed the spirit of Jonah and para- 
 
SECTARIANISM 67 
 
 lyzes the modem church. When the essence of sectarian- 
 ism is clearly understood, the way will be open for a truer 
 understanding of the meaning of unity. To a considera- 
 tion, then, of what we mean by uxdty let us now turn. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 ORGANIC UNITY 
 
 If it be true that the largest group of Christian people 
 in the Western world have not attained to spiritual unity 
 and are no more free from the sin of schism than is the 
 smallest and most insignificant group, and if, on the other 
 hand, unity is the one thing needed to enable the church 
 to fulfil its mission and accomplish its task, what is the 
 nature of that unity and where is it to be found ? 
 
 There is no question which has been more frequently 
 discussed in ecclesiastical circles during the last fifteen 
 years than that of church unity. While it is generally 
 admitted that unity is essential for the well-being of the 
 church, it has not been so evident that the nature of that 
 unity has been clearly understood, and, as a consequence, 
 men's minds have been bemused by various theories which 
 have pushed experience and observation into the back- 
 ground. To some of these theories we must now turn, 
 even at the risk of being thought to have wandered from 
 our subject. 
 
 How often we come across some such statement as the 
 following: "Our unhappy divisions not only weaken the 
 church but are out of date because a nobler conception of 
 the meaning of the church has been granted to us in this 
 day than was known to those who lived in the days which 
 immediately followed the Reformation. Unity has been 
 the goal of the national movements which have made great 
 the nations of the world in the last fifty years. In the 
 United States the vision of unity rose, in the Civil War, 
 like a * cloudy, fiery pillar,' and the influence of America 
 was felt in Italy and Germany. These were manifesta- 
 tions of an instinct of humanity which is unconsciously 
 
 68 
 
ORGANIC UNITY 69 
 
 actuated by a truth, the full significance of which is not 
 understood. That truth is that humanity is an organism. 
 When that truth is ignored; when it is forgotten that the 
 welfare of the individual is dependent upon the welfare of 
 the whole; when the individual has been made the end of 
 life; then we see competition in the economic life, solipsism 
 in philosophy, hedonism in ethics, and sectarianism in re- 
 ligion." 
 
 That this represents a wide-spread feeling cannot be 
 denied. It is the foundation on which many plans for 
 social reform rest. But when for humanity we substitute 
 some special group, the doctrine may prove false. Because 
 the ocean rises and falls with the tide, it does not follow 
 that the local pond or even the Great Lakes are so moved. 
 Humanity may be an organism, but special groups, such 
 as a state or a church or a labor-union, may not be an 
 organism. Because this has been overlooked, the mediae- 
 val church claimed to be an organism; so did the German 
 state, and so to-day does the Russian Soviet government. 
 
 An organism is a structure composed of various organs 
 which are dependent upon the composite structure for their 
 existence. Each organ presupposes the existence and ne- 
 cessity of every other organ in the complex structure. The 
 most familiar form of an organism is the human body, in 
 which we recognize that no one of the organs could Hve 
 and function apart from the whole. From this analogy 
 the theory of social organic unity arose. The organs or 
 the limbs of the state were supposed to be the individuals 
 who compose the community. Therefore the life and wel- 
 fare of the state is the final cause of the existence of the 
 individual. But two things have been forgotten in this 
 exposition: first, that the individual does not correspond to 
 the organs or limbs of the body, but, rather, to the cells 
 which are the fimdamental and, perhaps, indestructible ele- 
 ments in the body. The human body is composed of a 
 vast number of cells, each having a semi-independent life. 
 
70 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 But the life, whatever may be its nature, whether mechani- 
 cal, chemical, or spiritual, is what supports the structure. 
 The structure makes the conditions for co-ordination but 
 does not provide the life. It is true that unless these cells 
 are sensitized and motorized by the cortex of the brain 
 there results, not harmonious activity, but a sort of " twitch- 
 ing," which is a sign of nervous disorder. This semi-inde- 
 pendence of the cells is declared to be analogous to "anar- 
 chy" in the state, when certain individuals refuse to obey 
 the inhibitions of the higher commands which, it is claimed, 
 answer to the brain in the human body. "Perfect national 
 life requires the absolute subordination of the individual 
 to the will of the state." This had been the teaching in 
 regard to the church before it was applied to the state, 
 and, if it be true, there is no reason why it should not be 
 applied to a labor-union or any other group. From this 
 solenm dogmatism one is tempted to turn to a wise book 
 called "Father Tom and the Pope." In it there is a scene 
 in which Father Tom, after listening to an explanation by 
 the pope of one of the mysteries of the faith, exclaims witi 
 enthusiasm: ^'Verum pro te; true for you, Holy Father; 
 the figures of speech are the pillars of the church." This 
 wise saying seems to have been forgotten by some modem 
 philosophers, who have made the fatal mistake of confusing 
 analogy with identity. 
 
 From early times the relation of the different members 
 of the composite structure called the human body has been 
 used as an illustration of the relation of the individual to 
 society. It is so used by St. Paul; and, properly under- 
 stood, is as illuminating to-day as it was of old. There 
 should be in the social order ^e same harmony which is 
 exhibited in a well-functioning organism. But to declare 
 that a political or ecclesiastical or industrial corporation in 
 the social order is an organism in the sense that the individ- 
 uals who compose it are to be subordinated to some higher 
 will in the group analogous to the "inhibiting" brain in 
 
ORGANIC UNITY 71 
 
 the human body is to fall into the mediaeval error of de- 
 ducing a fact from a dogma, and, could it be carried into 
 effect, would lead us back to the tyranny of the mediaeval 
 church or to the ruthlessness of Germany in the Great War, 
 or to murderous strikes and their brutal repressions. 
 
 The German theory of the state was partly an inheri- 
 tance from the mediaeval church and partly a reaction 
 from Rousseau's doctrine of the social contract. It is true 
 that human society did not arise in the way Rousseau sup- 
 posed. The probability is that it was fear — first, the fear 
 of the wild beasts and then of man, the enemy — ^which 
 made association necessary; then the clever and the strong 
 compelled the stupid and the weak to do their will, and so 
 the state came to be. But this is not the whole story. 
 Why should love be excluded ? We know that sexual im- 
 pulse played an important part in the earliest social activ- 
 ity as it does to-day. But did not also friendship, the 
 yearning for companionship, passing the love of women, 
 influence primitive man and form an essential element in 
 the cement which held together the primitive society ? It 
 was not a "voluntary" association which produced the 
 primitive society, for the individual had not yet been dif- 
 ferentiated from the mass; force was the necessary protec- 
 tion of the individual as well as of the social group. It 
 was a necessary element in the social evolution, but it is 
 not the last nor the highest. Therefore Rousseau was 
 right ideally. The ideal society will be the voluntary 
 association and co-operation of individuals for self-realiza- 
 tion and a common good. St. Paul had a truer conception 
 of society when he called upon each individual to subordi- 
 nate himself willingly for the welfare of the whole body. 
 
 But no more in society than in the individual can it be 
 said that unity is produced by the unwilling subordination 
 of one member to any other nor to a majority of all. 
 When the analogy is pressed to the point where it is 
 asserted that there is in the social organism something an- 
 
72 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 swering to the brain of the individual, which the members 
 must all obey, there are many fallacies which creep in 
 under the cloak of a figure of speech. For, in the first 
 place, it is not the obedience of the many members to the 
 commands of the brain which is the cause for unity; the 
 unity may become more effective in that way, but the unity 
 itself pre-existed. The brain is itself no more than the 
 material instrument through which the life reveals itself 
 to every part; that is, it is the medium of communication, 
 but also a member of the body, and can no more claim to 
 be the "body" than can the ''hand" or the "foot." Each 
 member of an organism presupposes the existence and ne- 
 cessity of every other member, and all are dependent, not 
 upon some mechanical arrangement of the different parts, 
 but upon the current of life which flows through all and 
 constitutes their unity. When that life current ceases to 
 flow, the body remains for a time apparently complete, but 
 we know that it has become a corpse — ^no longer an organ- 
 ism but a thing. That which made it an organism was 
 the habitation of the spirit. Only in this way does man 
 become a living soul.* 
 
 "But," it may be asked, "is there nothing in the social 
 organism which corresponds to the brain in the body and 
 sends its commanding message to every part ?" There is, 
 but it is not material but spiritual. It is conscience, or 
 the consciousness of God which makes a true spiritual 
 organism. 
 
 St. Paul says that every Christian is a "temple of the 
 Holy Spirit." That means that every Christian is an 
 organ of God — a true organism. Yet no one will say that 
 the best of men is a complete organism in the sense that 
 through his life the full harmony of God resounds. But 
 
 * "The difference between a mechanical whole and an organic whole 
 is that the former may be regarded as the sum of its parts, and the 
 latter is something more or something other than the sum of its parts." 
 —"Moral Values and the Idea of God," W. R. Sorley, p. 155. 
 
ORGANIC UNITY 73 
 
 there are men who say: "While this is true, the church is 
 an organism in the sense that the individual is not." What 
 does that mean ? In what sense is it true ? Has any 
 church known in history been the perfect organ of God ? 
 There can be but one answer. St. Paul's hope was that 
 the church in his day might grow "till it became such an 
 organ, so that through it the glory of God would sound 
 forth in perfect harmony." But that hope was based on 
 the expectation of the immediate return of his Lord. 
 Later he learned that it was to be the result of ages of 
 education. For the apostle knew that the only organism 
 which could show forth the glory of God is humanity, and 
 by humanity he meant the human race into which each 
 individual brought his conscience as a contribution to the 
 common consciousness of mankind, acting in the unity of 
 the spirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteousness of 
 life.* The first step toward that goal was to make all men 
 see what is the "mystery" or "secret" which Christ had 
 made known, which is the meaning of humanity. "When 
 the reign of Christ is complete the end will come and the 
 
 * "An organism is that in which life is exercising itself toward greater 
 complexity and greater variety, and which, while it makes a portion of 
 life its very own, lives also within that ocean of life which is our uni- 
 verse. There is no limit to the life it can use for its own ends, because 
 to the organism its universe is practically infinite; that is, limited in 
 the capacity of the organism to utilize the life for its own ends; and it 
 is the power to use fully what is given it for its own end, when that 
 end is in harmony with God, that would be its perfection. We see the 
 fostering purpose in the teaching and training of organisms to use 
 more and more of what is given them for more and more perfect ends, 
 while all the time autonomy consists in the organism being able to 
 accept this influence or to use life for retrograde ends. . . . We find 
 that this last-developed, and as it seems to us highest, form in which 
 human life can rightly exercise itself (spiritual life), gives man more 
 power than any other of drawing in deep draughts of the universal life, 
 and using it to fashion some portion of the earth into some higher 
 stage in which the purpose of God can bear upon it more directly." — 
 "Voluntas Dei," pp. 40-41. 
 
 If the church be conceived as an organism, it will have to be remem- 
 bered that it is capable of degeneration as well as regeneration. 
 
74 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 kingdom be delivered to God the Father because God then 
 will be all and in all." The divine organism is a hope, not 
 a reality. If that is borne in mind we shall be justified in 
 speaking of the church as an organism, because we believe 
 it the most perfect means known to man for keeping the 
 hope alive and making the "secret" known to mankind. 
 But it can be called an organism only by a figure of speech; 
 it is so called as the expression of a hope but not as the 
 description of a reality.* The church is that part, and 
 the only part, of humanity which has learned the meaning 
 of human life — that it is predestinated to be the organ of 
 God. But if the church may ideally be spoken of as the 
 divine organism, it is to be remembered that it is not such 
 because of its visible structure or frame, but because it is 
 filled with the spirit. Nor must it be pretended that' the 
 spirit dwells in an imaginary whole but not in the real 
 parts, or that it animated the church in the past and is 
 not dweUing in the church to-day. No one of the many 
 churches is without the witness of the spirit, and no one 
 has a monopoly of it, nor do all the churches taken in their 
 totality contain the full life of God. So while we are not 
 justified in saying that any one of the churches in the 
 past, or now existing, no matter how ancient its organiza- 
 tion or splendid its ritual or profound its theology, is the 
 divine organ, we are justified in saying that there is not 
 one of them, no matter how recent its organization or 
 meagre its worship or inadequate its philosophy, which is 
 not a "stop" in the divine instrument, and does not play 
 an essential part in the great symphony of redemption. 
 It is because the sublime spiritual ideal which St. Paul was 
 the first to see has been obscured by the mists of "error, 
 ignorance, pride, and prejudice" that we have identified 
 
 **'The ethical unity of the universe is a unity to be attained. It 
 does not belong in its completeness to any stage of the time-process, 
 but only to its realized purpose." — "Moral Values and the Idea of 
 God," W. R. Sorley, p. 456. 
 
ORGANIC UNITY 75 
 
 organism with organization, and supposed that corporate 
 unity was the same as organic unity. The latter is a sub- 
 lime hope; the former is an undesirable impossibility. 
 
 It is because this fundamental truth has been overlooked 
 and men have fixed their attention on the external that 
 they have failed to understand the internal and spiritual 
 Hfe, without which there can be no organism, and, as a 
 consequence, have been driven to believe that force must 
 be appUed to compel the individual to submit. The Ger- 
 mans reverted to the primitive type of society and, there- 
 fore, force was the essential element in the social structure 
 as they conceived it. No doubt, force must for a long 
 time be the necessary means for preventing anarchy, which 
 would be as fatal to the individual as to society at large. 
 But it is not ideal, that is, it cannot be the final will of 
 God. As long as force is believed to be the essential 
 cement of society, the "anarchist" will be necessary. For 
 he has often been the most effective witness to the ideal 
 order. Such was Jeremiah in the days of old. "Behold, 
 I have made thee this day a defenced city, and an iron pil- 
 lar, and brazen walls against the whole land, against the 
 kings of Judah, against the princes thereof, against the 
 priests thereof, and against the people of the land. And 
 they shall fight against thee; but they shall not prevail 
 against thee; for I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver 
 thee." * Such an anarchist was William Lloyd Garrison; 
 he and other early abolitionists would not obey an inhuman 
 law. They suffered patiently the penalty of their lawless- 
 ness, strong in their faith that their fellow countrymen 
 would one day see, and do the right. Thus it has ever 
 been with the men "bom out of due time." They are in 
 advance of their day; they see a better country, and bear 
 witness to it. The ideal anarchist refuses to submit to a 
 custom which he believes to be a menace to the well-being 
 of society. He will not consent to the perpetuation of a 
 ♦Jeremiah i : 18, 19. 
 
76 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 wrong which he believes would prevent the social order 
 which is about to be; rather wiU he die to bear witness to 
 the truth; and in so doing he follows the example of Jesus. 
 
 If the most important thing in the social organization 
 were the perpetuation of the present custom rather than 
 the adaptation of the organization to the ideal order which 
 as yet has been revealed to but a few, the conduct of the 
 martyrs would have been as abhorrent to God as it was to 
 those in authority in the days when they suffered. But 
 that does not seem to have been the case. They seem to 
 have been blessed by God. The progress of mankind has 
 been largely due to "anarchists.'' It is they who have 
 written the laws under which we now live in security. On 
 the banner of the church is inscribed the device which we 
 are apt to think has only an historic significance: "The 
 noble army of martyrs praise thee." Herein lies the glory 
 of the Reformation. The reformers were, some of them, 
 martyrs, and some only "confessors"; but they were all 
 "anarchists"! It was because Germany forgot the exam- 
 ple of the fathers that they made the state the supreme 
 organism and, as a result, individual conscience was sub- 
 merged in the great tragedy. 
 
 It has become the fashion to sneer at the doctrine of 
 "private judgment," which indeed is open to many objec- 
 tions when it is supposed to mean that one man is as well 
 fitted as another to decide technical questions with which 
 an expert only has the necessary knowledge to deal. But 
 when it is denied that the moral life is dependent uponjt, 
 we may expect again an "invasion of Belgium," or the re- 
 establishment of the Inquisition, or the triumph of violent 
 strikers. No organization can be intrusted with the re- 
 sponsibility which belongs to the individual.* "All souls 
 
 * "The moral consciousness, it is held, is simply a reflection of the 
 social order, or at least in origin it was so; and its peculiarities are due 
 to its origin. . . . The theory that morality consists in nothing more 
 than conforming to the social order, or maintaining the social equilib- 
 
ORGANIC UNITY 77 
 
 are mine," said the prophet of the exile, speaking for the 
 Eternal. His, like Jeremiah^s, was a nobler teaching than 
 theirs had been, who knew only the corporate holiness of 
 Israel. It is the corner-stone of the morality of Jesus, and 
 the clearest note in his call to man to come to God. In 
 his view the fate of the ninety and nine, considered as a 
 flock, was not to weigh for a moment with the value of the 
 individual sheep. St. Paul carried on the teaching of his 
 Master when he wrote: ^^ Every one of us shaU give account 
 of himself unto God." We cannot shift the responsibility 
 upon state or church or union or any other group. Each 
 soul stands before God like Adam in the garden. 
 
 It may be objected that this discussion is not germane 
 to the subject in hand. But a moment's consideration will 
 show that it is of the utmost value in an understanding of 
 the problem before us. Its influence upon the moral char- 
 acter cannot be too strongly insisted upon. The Germans 
 whose ruthlessness shocked the world had been trained to 
 believe that the state was the supreme organism, and as 
 a result their individual conscience played no part in the 
 awful tragedy. 
 
 What, then, is society ? It is the necessary association 
 for a more effective and nobler life than is possible for the 
 
 rium, or promoting social vitality, receives no support from the histori- 
 cal view that, for the conscience of the early or savage tribesman, 
 morality and social custom had the same content. . . . Conventional 
 morality simply means the morality of ordinary opinion, which is in 
 close accord with prevailing practice. The morality of primitive man 
 was strictly conventional ; the morality of civilized man is often conven- 
 tional in a less strict sense . . . and conventional morality may be 
 used as a term of reproach just because the moral opinion of men is no 
 longer restricted to opinions that are exclusively social in their origin. 
 But the form of morality which is most purely conventional is that in 
 which it is merely social; in objecting to any moral doctrine on the 
 ground that it is conventional, the objector admits by implication that 
 the social basis of morality is inadequate, and that it stands in need of 
 reflective criticism." — "Moral Values and the Idea of God," W. R. 
 Sorley, pp. 65-68. 
 
78 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 individual in isolation. "It is not well for the man to be 
 alone." 
 
 The unit is the individual. He does not exist for society 
 nor does society exist for him. He becomes a person only 
 in society. Society is the name for all the personalities 
 who have preceded and are now living and who are yet to 
 come. Each of these is dependent for his complete per- 
 sonality upon all. Society, then, is not a person; it is the 
 necessary condition of personality. 
 
 It is due to a confusion upon this matter that the hor- 
 rors of the late war fell upon us. But it is no new thing. 
 The world has not suddenly grown worse. Indeed, the 
 horror excited by the war is a proof that the world is bet- 
 ter. The outrages in the late war are no greater than 
 those of the Thirty Years' War. But in those days it was 
 assumed that such things were inevitable. To-day they 
 are beUeved to be preventable. That which distinguishes 
 this age from any other is that we have tried to formulate 
 a philosophic and moral justification of such horrors. This 
 has been traced to German philosophy and to the scientific 
 writers of the nineteenth century. But these justifications 
 go farther back than that. They are the outcome of the 
 mediaeval theory of the sin of heresy, which was identified 
 with difference of opinion and rebellion against the dogmas 
 of the church before the state had become the group to 
 which it was believed the allegiance of men was primarily 
 due. It was the church which taught that the individual 
 must subordinate his intellectual and moral Hfe to the 
 organization. As long as the life of the individual was 
 subordinated to the church, both intellectual and moral 
 progress were obstructed. This does not imply that the 
 papacy and monasticism and scholasticism were without 
 value. We may say of them all, as St. Paul said of the 
 "law," that they were schoolmasters, but a scholar who 
 never graduates degenerates into a slave. Each of these 
 had a preparatory value in the education of mankind, but 
 
ORGANIC UNITY 79 
 
 became a tyranny because it was not recognized that " one 
 good custom *' may " corrupt the world." The "saints " con- 
 tinually violated their humane feelings in obedience to the 
 supposed necessities of the church — the supreme organiza- 
 tion — ^but by so doing they violated the social law because 
 they violated the law of the individual. For the welfare 
 of the community is as dependent upon the protection of 
 the "inalienable rights" of the individual as upon the 
 preservation of the present prevailing custom. 
 
 The hope of the future lies in an inspiring education 
 which, recognizing the supreme value of personality, will 
 set free the latent personality in the individuals now sub- 
 merged in some "organization." At present we are con- 
 fused between the claims of two theories of education; the 
 one, which we might call the Jesuit theory, would crush 
 individuality as an evil thing and subordinate free will to 
 obedience; the other, which is the utilitarian, has no higher 
 purpose than to enable the individual to succeed in the 
 struggle for existence. The one would destroy the person- 
 ality and the other society. But personality is not abnor- 
 mal individuality; it is the individual life realizing itself in 
 an inspired community. The late Prof. Royce taught us 
 that there are two instincts which determine the relation 
 of the individual to society; the one is "imitation" and the 
 other "opposition." "T/je entire process of conscious edu- 
 cation involves the deliberate appeal to the docility of those 
 two types of social instincts. For whatever else we teach 
 to a social being we teach him to imitate. And whatever 
 use we teach him to make of his social limitations in his 
 relation with other men, we are obliged at the same time 
 to teach him to assert himself, in some sort of way, in con- 
 trast with his fellows, and by virtue of the arts which he 
 possesses." * 
 
 But if this is true of the individual in isolation, it is 
 equally true of the individual in voluntary groups. It is 
 *Royce*s "Outlines of Psychology," p. 279. 
 
8o THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 in these religious groups which we call " churches'' that 
 man exercises the noblest art, which is the worship of God. 
 Because this truth is ignored, we hear vague talk about 
 ''herd instinct," the "state as an organism," "the social 
 conscience," "mob psychology," and the "national con- 
 sciousness." But how seldom does any one take the 
 trouble to tell us what these expressions mean ! We sus- 
 pect they are mere figures of speech. Had the "herd in- 
 stinct" predominated, there would have been no progress. 
 The state is not an "organism," but an organization or 
 corporation. The popular saying that corporations have 
 no souls is often interpreted as a reproach to corporations, 
 but, properly understood, it is the statement of a psycho- 
 logical fact; corporations would have souls if they were 
 persons. There can be no social conscience apart from the 
 conscience of the individuals who constitute society; nor 
 can "mob psychology" mean anything but the psychology 
 of individuals acting under abnormal conditions, and 
 thereby escaping from the inhibitions of habit, and in con- 
 sequence becoming peculiarly susceptible to "suggestion." 
 "National consciousness" is the consciousness of individ- 
 uals of their national relation, with all the responsibility 
 and glory which accompany such remembrance. 
 
 To assert that "unity" is the one thing for which the 
 nations long to-day is to overlook another passion even 
 greater among the small nations, and that is "self-deter- 
 mination." Not till the latter has been attained can there 
 be any hope of an internationalism which will supplement 
 the present rivalries of nationality. The same is true of 
 the church. Unity is indeed the crying need to-day — as 
 it has ever been — but it cannot be attained until there is 
 the recognition of the desire of all the churches to enjoy 
 self-determination. 
 
 The harmony of these two conflicting desires is the 
 problem before religious men to-day. How is it to be 
 solved? We cannot return to the unity of mediaevalism 
 
ORGANIC UNITY 8i 
 
 without the emplo3mient of force; we cannot rest satisfied 
 with the present impotence of the various churches. What 
 path is left? None so far suggested seems to me to be 
 likely to solve the problem, for no one of them seems to 
 appreciate the necessity of recognizing the two elements 
 in the equation. We must do in the ecclesiastical life 
 what our fathers did in the political Hfe of this nation; we 
 must blaze a new path into the wilderness. We must 
 recognize that we have come to a new era and must serve 
 it with new methods. We are to-day in our ecclesiastical 
 life in a time not unUke that in our political life, which 
 John Fiske called "the critical period in American his- 
 tory." Our fathers found a solution for the political prob- 
 lem by the discovery of a new form of political association, 
 which they called "federalism." We must find a new 
 form of religious solidarity which will protect the rights of 
 the small and yet make more effective the life of the 
 whole. But the first step cannot be taken till we recog- 
 nize that there can be no return to the past. We can 
 return neither to the Catholicism of the Middle Ages nor 
 to the Protestantism of the sixteenth century. The one is 
 identified with the Holy Roman Empire, and the other 
 with self-sufficient nationalism; the one does indeed hold 
 a certain theory of "development," but the other is iden- 
 tified with a servile dogmatism which is repugnant to the 
 modem mind.* It is significant that no one of the mod- 
 em protestants against the tyranny of the Catholic Church, 
 from DolUnger to Tyrrell, has seemed even to contemplate 
 turning to Protestantism. 
 
 * " I would say that the least valuable part of the inheritance which 
 modern Christendom owes to the Reformation of the sixteenth century 
 is its distinctive dogmatic theology, which was in truth very largely 
 moulded upon the traditions and ideas of mediaeval scholasticism in its 
 last and most degenerate phase. From one point of view "Lutheran 
 doctrine (of justification by faith) is simply the last and not the best 
 product of an expiring scholasticism." — "The Idea of Atonement in 
 Christian Theology," Dean Rashdall, p. 416. 
 
82 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 This has been well expressed by a recent writer: "The 
 Protestant Revolution was by no means a complete move- 
 ment. The sixteenth century saw neither its beginning 
 nor its end. No vital movement comes to an end at a 
 given date, but continues on its way, transmuted but un- 
 diminished, along the great arteries of the world. Life is 
 a fluid. Its horizons are always being extended. Religion 
 is always being reformed. Less and less do we endeavor 
 to confine it within the shell of some dogmatic system. 
 Instead, we seek to interweave it with our daily lives. 
 And if the sixteenth century has any word to say to our 
 own it is that any attempt to harden religion into an in- 
 stitution inevitably results only in sorrow, in suffering, and 
 in failure. Absolute truth lies beyond the grasp of man. 
 Man must be content to increase his store of relative truth 
 with the changing centuries. We are abandoning the ideal 
 of immutable truth for the ideal of progressive truth. This 
 is an imlooked-for result of the Protestant Revolution that 
 is slowly but surely making its way to the surface. The 
 deepest significance of the Revolution lies not in its nega- 
 tive element, not in the fact that it gave birth to new 
 dogmas and organized new churches, but in the profound 
 awakening of the religious sentiment that it produced, the 
 desire to be in harmony with God that it implanted in the 
 hearts of man. In doing this it exaggerates the dogmas of 
 original sin, grace, and predestination to such a point as 
 to reduce man to a cipher. The rectification of his error 
 is the task of the later stages of the movement.'* * 
 
 It is because this truth has been overlooked that good 
 men of different temperaments are seeking to restore the 
 vanished unity of the church by attempts to return to a 
 past that can no more be regained than the snows of the 
 winter that has gone. Those who by temperament are 
 Protestant think that there can be a revival of Protestant 
 
 * "Renaissance and Reformation," Edward Maslin Hulme, Century 
 Co., p. 370. 
 
ORGANIC UNITY 83 
 
 dogmatism, and those who call themselves Anglo-Catholics 
 dream of the restoration of the stately edifice erected in 
 the Middle Ages. Both are dreams, neither of which in 
 the day in which we live is greatly needed in order that we 
 may do the work to which we have been called in this our 
 day and generation. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 CHURCH UNITY 
 
 The dogma of corporate unity when it is applied to the 
 life of the church is called church unity. There is a tenta- 
 tive form of this doctrine which need not long detain us, 
 because it is superficial. It is what is known as "the 
 federation of the churches." It is an earnest and well- 
 meaning attempt to lessen the unseemly denominational 
 rivalry among the various churches. But it seems to 
 assume the permanent value of the dogmatic conclusions 
 of the Reformation theology, which it identifies with 
 "evangelicar* truth. This leads to a sort of historical 
 provincialism which is distasteful to not a few students of 
 the long history of the church. Moreover, in its attempts 
 to produce harmony, it seems to overlook the principles 
 for which the various churches believe they stand, and 
 which is their sole justification for their being. We gain 
 nothing by crying "Peace, peace," when there is no peace. 
 Then its very name is unfortunate; "federation" is a politi- 
 cal term and predicates a central authority to which the 
 parts must submit. But who that has studied the politi- 
 cal history of this country in the last seven years can be 
 in doubt as to the fate of any scheme which seems even 
 to suggest a "supergovernment"! 
 
 On the other hand, we should gladly admit that it is 
 doing good work in bringing together the representatives 
 of the various churches so as to produce a better under- 
 standing, and in establishment of "union churches" in 
 scattered communities, especially in Canada, where sec- 
 tarian rivalries were stifling rehgion. It also acts as a 
 clearing-house, and keeps the various churches informed 
 of present problems in order that they may, by a com- 
 
 84 
 
CHURCH UNITY 85 
 
 bined effort, influence public opinion so as to prevent un- 
 desirable legislation or urge much-needed reforms. 
 
 But the classic example of plans for "church unity" is 
 foimd in the Anglican communion. For the past twenty- 
 five years good and devoted men have sought for some 
 bond of um'on.* But when these plans are critically ex- 
 amined, it will be found that none of them is free from the 
 heresy of confusing "organic" with "corporate" unity. 
 Sooner or later we are sure to come upon some such state- 
 ment as this: "Inasmuch as the church is an organization, 
 it must have some sort of government, some definite teach- 
 ing, and some form of worship." As each of the many 
 churches in this land has continued for many years to min- 
 ister to men of many minds, it is to be assumed that they 
 have all been helpful in the highest realm of the spirit. 
 But when we ask ourselves how the different churches are 
 to be united into one common body, we find ourselves con- 
 fronted by the old spectre of uniformity, which has been 
 the obstacle to unity from the days of Constantine. Uni- 
 formity may have been necessary in the day when nothing 
 but the power of the state seemed able to control the spirit 
 of disputation which was tearing the church to pieces, 
 which is what the picture of the church of the fourth cen- 
 tury presents to us, but it does not follow that it is either 
 necessary or desirable now. 
 
 Yet that is the spectre which seems to haunt many in 
 our church who write on this subject. Bishop Gore's book 
 on "The Ministry," as well as Canon Headlamps Bampton 
 lectures on "The Church's Doctrine and Reunion," though 
 they start from different points of view, and though the 
 latter is written in a more liberal spirit than the former, 
 both come in their conclusions to an agreement that would 
 not have been expected. This is due, I believe, to the fact 
 
 * A full list of the various plans which have been formulated by the 
 English Church and the Episcopal Church in this country will be found 
 in the Appendix to Bishop Manning's "The Call to Unity." 
 
86 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 that both are victims of a common obsession — Catholic 
 tradition. Both, believing that the English Church has 
 maintained the Catholic tradition, in doctrine, discipline, 
 and worship, fail to imagine a unity which is not based on 
 these lines. It is true that Canon Headlam finds an earlier 
 tradition, but when he comes to the present problem, he 
 seems to feel that the Catholic tradition is essential. If, 
 however, we examine what these writers call the Catholic 
 tradition, we shall find it is essentially a Protestant tradi- 
 tion. Both show the influence of the Protestant dogma of 
 private judgment. For, unwilling as we may be to admit 
 it, the crown of the Catholic tradition is the papacy. 
 
 Yet seeing that rock clearly before them, the good ship 
 Faith and Orders was steered straight toward it, with a 
 result which might have been expected. Indeed, we are 
 incUned to think that the object was simply, as the lawyers 
 say, to "go on record '* as wilHng to unite with any church. 
 However that may have been, the result was inevitable. 
 The Roman Catholic Church said, in substance: "You are 
 quite right in saying that a true church must have a valid 
 ministry, a proper way of administering the sacraments, 
 and must hold the Catholic faith. Very well ! If that is 
 what you are looking for, come into the communion of the 
 Mother Church and submit to the Infallible Church — the 
 same yesterday, to-day, and forever." 
 
 Then they turned to the Eastern church, i. e., the Greek 
 or Russian. The Orientals do not know a great deal about 
 the history of the American Episcopal Church, and are a 
 little imcertain as to the validity of its orders, and what 
 they had heard about the Reformation they did not like; 
 and, therefore, they suggested that if the Anglicans would 
 change the Nicene Creed into the form that they have 
 always used — which is the right one — and would get rid of 
 some of the effects of the Reformation, then they might 
 talk about church unity. The bishop of Harrisburg, chair- 
 man of the commission, representing the Episcopal Church, 
 
CHURCH UNITY 87 
 
 addressed a letter to them stating in substance that those 
 for whom he spoke greatly regretted much that had hap- 
 pened in the Reformation, and intimated that it was hoped 
 that they would free themselves from its blemishes. The 
 bishop of southern Virginia immediately protested, and so 
 the attempt to bring about church unity between the 
 Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States and the 
 Greek Church led to new disturbances. As the first reach 
 toward union between the Anglican and the Roman Church 
 encountered shipwreck, so the next tack came near produc- 
 ing mutiny. 
 
 What else was to have been expected? In the Anglo- 
 Eastern Catholic Concordat it was proposed that relics 
 and icons should be used as "adjuncts^' in religious wor- 
 ship; that the seven sacraments be acknowledged, and the 
 hope expressed that the Anglican churches would soon have 
 a special service in the Book of Common Prayer for "^ex- 
 treme unction." In the preliminary statement of the 
 American Commission we read: "We have been informed 
 from time to time that the Orthodox Easterns have some 
 difficulty in reconciling certain Protestant aspects of our 
 position and policy with full and genuine orthodoxy — in 
 particular the phraseology of our Articles of Religion ^ the 
 laxity of our discipline toward certain Protestant errors, and 
 the existence, even among many of our clergy, of opinions 
 inconsistent with loyalty to the Catholic Faith and Order J* 
 (Italics mine.) Then follows an apology for the Reforma- 
 tion in which such expressions as these are found: "The 
 Prayer Book was set forth embodying the Catholic working 
 system, hut in forms and language which it was hoped would 
 retain the loyalty of those impatient souls"! "Accord- 
 ingly, our discipline has always been tender and sympa- 
 thetic in that direction, and we are indisposed to drive out 
 those among ourselves who fail to realize the fulness of their 
 Catholic heritage, lest we alienate Protestants altogether and 
 thus end all hope of winning them. This policy has worked 
 
88 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 as well as could be reasonably expected." (It might be 
 suggested that it could not reasonably have been expected 
 to work at all.) "Those who fully and loyally adhere to 
 the Prayer-Book working-system do become more and 
 more consistently Catholic; and every loyalty in this work- 
 ing-system results in what is called a 'Catholic movement/ 
 of which the Tractarian movement, beginning in 1833, ^s 
 an example. And each new movement of this kind is more 
 gratifying in its Catholic results than its predecessors. 
 The sum of the matter is that our history establishes the 
 Catholic nature and tendency of our position and system; 
 and the seeming lax aspects of conditions show merely that 
 we are adhering to the great work of helping Protestants 
 to recover what they have lost." 
 
 There are two things to be said about this remarkable 
 document; the first is that one wonders what will be its 
 effect when the commission on "faith and orders" comes 
 to conference with the "impatient" Protestants. 
 
 The second is, the men who signed this report are aU 
 good men and some of them learned men; moreover, there 
 must have been some with a sense of humor. I think that 
 the latter must have signed without reading it. 
 
 The letter of the bishop of southern Virginia is pertinent: 
 
 "... I have the highest respect for the members of 
 the commission and recognize their ability and their pure 
 consecration to the cause of Christian unity. In both the 
 preliminary statement and the proposed terms of agree- 
 ment, however, there are expressed positions which I can- 
 not take conscientiously with my sense of loyalty to the 
 church of which I am a member. 
 
 "I find myself unable to disagree with the definition and 
 what I feel to be the limitation of the number of sacraments 
 given in the Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty-nine 
 Articles of our own church. 
 
 "I cannot join in the apology, which is made in the 
 preliminary statement of the American Commission for the 
 
CHURCH UNITY 89 
 
 English Reformation, nor share the regret expressed for 
 the Protestant atmosphere in which the Anglican Church 
 was compelled to set forth its liturgy and its foundation of 
 doctrine. Nor can I share in the hope that in the near 
 future, when 'the Catholic movement of which the Trac- 
 tarian movement beginning in 1833 ^s an example,' has 
 reached its zenith, the church will be thoroughly de-prot- 
 estantized. Nor am I ready to accept the decrees of the 
 seventh council and to lend my sanction to the worship of 
 relics and icons. 
 
 "For these reasons I have cabled to the chairman of the 
 commission not to sign my name, as a member of the 
 commission, to either the preliminary statement or the 
 terms of agreement. I do not desire to enter into con- 
 troversy. For my associates on the commission I have a 
 feeling of affection and of sympathy in their desire to pro- 
 mote Christian unity. Their judgment may be better 
 than mine, but I am compelled to follow my conviction 
 and do my duty as God seems by His Holy Spirit to indi- 
 cate it to me. I shall reserve the right to express my 
 views, as a member of the commission, when its report is 
 presented to the General Convention." * 
 
 But a more august and, indeed, more hopeful sign was 
 seen in the attempt of the Lambeth Conference to approach 
 the non-Episcopal churches of the world. The letter of 
 the archbishop of Canterbury is a beautiful letter; it 
 breathes the spirit of peace and love. But we find in it 
 the same fallacy which underlies all these Anglo-Catholic 
 appeals. The archbishop's plan of unity is expressed as 
 follows: "We would say that if the authorities of other 
 communions should so desire, we are persuaded that the 
 bishops and clergy of our communion would willingly con- 
 sent to accept from these authorities a form of commission 
 or recognition which would commend our ministry to their 
 congregation. It is our hope that the same motive would 
 *$ee Th^ Chronicle of September, 1920, 
 
90 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES / 
 
 lead ministers who have not received it to accept a com- 
 mission through Episcopal ordination as obtaining for 
 them a ministry throughout the fellowship.*' The answer 
 of the non-Episcopal clergy is in substance: "But we have 
 always allowed your ministers to come into our pulpits. 
 We do not suggest that your ministry is not a valid one. 
 But what you are really asking us to do is to declare that 
 our ministry is at least an incomplete ministry, and has 
 never been under the highest blessing of God.'' 
 
 The letter of the archbishop, which was hailed as the 
 proclamation of peace by not a few of the clergy of the 
 Episcopal Church who were influenced by its sincere note 
 of love, should be critically examined. It cannot lead to 
 unity because of what it explicitly states and implicitly 
 suggests. It is evident that there is no equivalent ex- 
 change in the arrangement suggested, for what it requires 
 is that those who have not enjoyed the advantages of 
 Episcopal ordination shall, before being permitted to min- 
 ister in Episcopal churches, be ordained by a bishop. On 
 the one hand, a license is to be issued to minister in a par- 
 ticular congregation, and, on the other, an ordination is 
 required which would give for the first time a valid min- 
 istry in the universal church. 
 
 All the bishops are not at one in what they are seek- 
 ing. While it should be recognized that in this suggestion 
 the majority of the bishops were animated by a pure mo- 
 tive, the language of the letter cannot fail to excite a sus- 
 picion that there is something implied which is not frankly 
 expressed. Inasmuch as the letter of the archbishop re- 
 ceived the approval of almost every one present at the 
 Lambeth Conference, there will be a suspicion that it 
 would never have been assented to by some of the Ameri- 
 can bishops had it not been that they believed the plan, if 
 accepted by the non-Episcopal churches, would lead to the 
 eventual abolishment of the non-Episcopal ministries, and 
 give to each the "succession" mcUgre lui. The truth is 
 
CHURCH UNITY 91 
 
 that the whole plan shows that these good and learned men 
 are not living in the twentieth century at all, and as a result 
 there is an air of unreality about the whole scheme which 
 vitiates an unquestioned worthy motive. 
 
 What better reply could be made to it than the answer 
 of the Rev. Francis G. Peabody ? * "What seems to the 
 bishops an open road confronts the great majority of their 
 Protestant brethren with the sign 'private way.' In fact, 
 the movement of united Protestantism has already ad- 
 vanced a considerable distance in quite another direction, 
 toward a unity of spirit and a religion of practical disciple- 
 ship of Jesus Christ; and the question of the transmission 
 of the Episcopate already appears to those who are on the 
 way to this spiritual unity to belong to a past era, when 
 questions of ecclesiastical authority were of real interest, 
 and the world had not been summoned to the weightier 
 matters of co-operation, sacrifice, and service." 
 
 But it is not the impracticability of the plan which is 
 so distressing as the confusion which it reveals in the minds 
 of the representatives of the Anglican communion. Are 
 they or are they not in s)rmpathy with the churches of the 
 sixteenth century ? They cannot have it both ways. The 
 real question which the Episcopal churches must face and 
 answer before they can speak with authority to their reli- 
 gious brethren is far deeper than any question of orders; it 
 goes down to the very foimdation of religion itself. Does 
 the Episcopal Church believe in *' magical" or spiritual 
 religion ? That is the real question. The] Roman Catho- 
 lic Church does believe in magical religion. The Protestant 
 churches do not. Where does the Anglican Church stand ? 
 The world has a right to know. Do its leaders know ? I 
 am inclined to believe that they do not. They are by 
 training and inheritance free men, who believe in a desire 
 to die in the "comfort of a reasonable, religious, and holy 
 hope," but at the same time they are drawn to a magical 
 
 * See tlje Hibbert Journal^ January, 192 1. 
 
92 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES / 
 
 religion against which our Saviour was the first Christian 
 Protestant.* Till they are clear in their own minds where 
 they stand on this fundamental question, it would seem 
 to be the part of modesty to cease these suggestions for 
 church unity to men who are quite clear that whatever 
 may be the advantage of the Episcopate as a working 
 order, or the glory of the liturgy as an expression of the 
 church's continuous life, or of doctrine which perpetuates 
 the faith of old, if the result is that men are "to be en- 
 tangled again in the yoke of bondage" from which Christ 
 has set them free, they will prefer to sacrifice all these 
 treasures of historic inheritance in order to rejoice in the 
 liberty of the children of God. 
 
 There is to-day a crisis which menaces all the churches, 
 but that of the Episcopal Church is the most acute. When 
 it has made the great decision, its duty will be plain — 
 either to return from its wanderings to the mother church 
 and admit that they and their fathers have sinned in tear- 
 ing the seamless robe of our Lord, or else say plainly: "We 
 are seeking a better country and have no desire to return." 
 Till it does that its proclamations will have but academic 
 interest, and the world is in too dreadful a condition to 
 listen to unreal and futile schemes which fail to imder- 
 stand the signs of the times. This has been bluntly but 
 none too blimtly set forth by the outspoken dean of St. 
 PauFs: 
 
 "We do not sufficiently realize how completely the 
 path to various church reforms is barred by those who 
 refuse to consent to any change which would be an obsta- 
 cle in the way of submission to Rome. ... It is the 
 ignis fatuus of reunion with Rome which blocks the way 
 to reunion with our Protestant brethren. And I maintain 
 that we cannot allow the road to be permanently blocked 
 in this way. We may think it right to exercise patience 
 for the sake of internal peace; but we must push steadily 
 * See below, Chapter XV. 
 
CHURCH UNITY 93 
 
 against this absurd barrier till it breaks. We must show 
 by actions as weU as by words that we do not unchurch 
 our brethren, that we wish to acknowledge them and the 
 societies to which they belong. I repeat that it is recogni- 
 tion, not complete fusion, which we have to aim at. Let 
 me conclude by quoting the words of Field-Marshal Lord 
 Haig: 
 
 "*Now that the ordeal of war is over, I believe that the 
 churches, if they will but act together, have a great and 
 unequalled opportunity to secure and preserve for all time 
 to the lasting advantage of our race that capacity for com- 
 mon effort, spirit of fellowship, and community of ideals 
 which by their teaching and example they did so much to 
 foster in the war.*" * 
 
 * See The Churchman, March 5, 1921. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 SPIRITUAL UNITY 
 
 If what has been said in the foregoing chapters be true, 
 then there inevitably follow certain conclusions which must 
 affect our thought of Christian unity, and also the steps 
 which should be taken to effect it. There can be no unity 
 between organizations. Unity is a spiritual experience 
 and can be nothing less than the unity of persons. If the 
 various churches are persons, they may unite in a spiritual 
 entity; if they be not persons, they cannot so unite. 
 Unity, then, if it is ever to be attained, must be the unity 
 among those individuals who are associated together in 
 the various groups which we call churches — Episcopal, 
 Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist — ^what you will. The 
 recognition of this truth might lead us to realize the unity 
 which now exists, rather than to seek means for bringing 
 about a unity which never did and, indeed, never can exist. 
 This will not readily be admitted; it may be said that "as 
 there is unity among states, so may there be unity among 
 churches. Our own federal union is an example of that 
 which seems here to have been denied." But it was a 
 true instinct which led the framers of the Constitution to 
 begin with the statement: "We, the people of these United 
 States." It was the individual citizens who could unite 
 and not the "States." The same is true of the church. 
 The various churches cannot unite, though they may co- 
 operate and associate themselves for more effective work. 
 "Ye," says St. Paul, "are the body of Christ and members 
 in particular." 
 
 If church unity is an impossibility as at present con- 
 ceived, and yet it is evident that without some closer 
 association the churches are impotent, what remains? I 
 
 94y 
 
SPIRITUAL UNITY 95 
 
 answer: Fellowship. Whether there can be such an asso- 
 ciation of the churches as would reveal a complete manifes- 
 tation of the indwelling spirit of God, which is really the 
 desire of many earnest men, we need not now consider. 
 It would be largely in the nature of prophecy, to which we 
 do not pretend. This, however, will, I believe, be acknowl- 
 edged by all reasonable men, that any such association must 
 be preceded by a spiritual unity, which is what we mean 
 by fellowship. 
 
 The pathway to fellowship is in some respects the same 
 as that which the "Catholic'^ so much insists upon. It is 
 the path which has already been traced by the feet of the 
 saints of old. It is also in harmony with the devout spirit 
 of the "Protestant,'' who insists that the appeal to history 
 shall be carried back to the beginning of the history of the 
 church, when the influence of Jesus was predominant in 
 the Uves of his disciples. 
 
 Let us begin with the first. The Catholic who affirms 
 that no progress is possible for those who overlook the fact 
 that there was once a single church, and that in the New 
 Testament it is stated in terms which cannot be mistaken 
 that there can by no possibility be more than one, is, I 
 believe, on sure ground. "There is one body, and one 
 spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one 
 Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, 
 who is above all, and through all, and in you all.'' Noth- 
 ing can be clearer than that there can be but one church. 
 But when we ask ourselves with which of the existing eccle- 
 siastical organizations this one church is to be identified, 
 our difficulties begin. Has any one of the churches suc- 
 ceeded in emancipating itself wholly from the mediseval 
 spirit? It is to be doubted. Now, one characteristic of 
 tJie mediaeval mind was that it began with a dogma, and 
 then sought for facts to buttress it. If we have deter- 
 mined that the church shall have certain characteristics or 
 "notes" and none other, then inevitably we shall be led 
 
96 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 to identify the "one church" with that body which seems 
 to us to be the manifestation of those characteristics or to 
 strike those "notes/* We then forget that St. Paul, in his 
 exposition of the one church, was careful to point out that 
 diversity was an essential characteristic of the one church. 
 "Unto every one of us is given grace according to the 
 measure of the gift of Christ." It is the spirit of Christ 
 which determines the identity of any group with the true 
 church. Can it be said that any one of the existing 
 churches has a monopoly of that spirit ? If instead of the 
 mediaeval spirit we were to seek for the solution of our 
 problem in the scientific spirit which has led to such mar- 
 vellous results in other departments of life, we might come 
 to a better knowledge of the truth in this one. 
 
 St. John says: "If we walk in the light, as God is in the 
 light, we have fellowship one with another." It would 
 seem then as if he identified the brotherhood with those 
 who are walking in the light. He tells us that light is the 
 atmosphere in which God lives; something purer than that 
 of ordinary life. Whoever, then, enters into that rarefied 
 atmosphere of the divine life becomes one of the brother- 
 hood. 
 
 But it means more than that. The word "light," as it 
 is used in the New Testament, means ethical goodness. 
 If the Christian life is not an ethical life, then it is a vain 
 speculation. Now, as a matter of fact, there is not one of 
 the churches which has not been tempted, and sometimes 
 yielded to the temptation, to place something rather than 
 ethical goodness as the goal of human endeavor. It may 
 have been the reception of the sacraments, submission to 
 authority, or the expression of an orthodox faith; but the 
 only value in all these is that they may be means to an 
 end, which end is ethical goodness. If anything is ever 
 set up in place of that, then we walk in darkness, and not 
 in light. It is a lamentable fact that, because of the eccle- 
 siastical and theological idols to which we have turned, 
 
SPIRITUAL UNITY 97 
 
 the Christian church has, in some respects, lost something 
 of the ethical life known to paganism before the preaching 
 of the gospel. This is the dark shadow cast by the light 
 of "justification by faith." Belief or mere assent has 
 sometimes been substituted for moral goodness. 
 
 "Light" means more than moral goodness; it means 
 also knowledge — specially the knowledge of God. " Light " 
 is the manifestation of the unseen, and that means that 
 the divine light is the manifestation of the divine nature, 
 which is ultimate reality or truth. Those, then, who walk 
 in the light are walking in the atmosphere of God, and are 
 receiving, by direct personal revelation, truth or the ulti- 
 mate reality.* Bearing these truths in mind, let any man 
 ask himself this question: Is there any one of the churches 
 which can claim perfectly to represent the moral life or to 
 reveal the full knowledge of God ? The question has only 
 to be asked to be answered in regard to the first: there are 
 churches which claim to have and to reveal the full knowl- 
 edge of God, but a history of the church will show that the 
 claim is not justified. 
 
 Let the question now be turned the other way: Is there 
 a single one of the many churches in which there will not 
 be foxmd members who are leading a noble moral life or 
 are without that knowledge of God which enables them to 
 call him Father, Redeemer, Sanctifier ? If such a church 
 can be found, then, indeed, we may say that it is not a 
 church nor any part of the Church of the Living God. 
 
 "Light" means also love; "God is light" because "God 
 is love." Light is the manifestation, the epiphany, of love. 
 Is there any church which has a monopoly of that? Is 
 there any church some of whose members are not inspired 
 by love, and do not manifest that love in good-will to man 
 and in deep and awful gratitude to God ? Again we may 
 say that to these questions there can be but one answer. 
 But the right answer to these questions would enable us 
 • See "The Fourth Gospel," E. F. Scott, pp. 255-256. 
 
98 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 to answer our previous question : "What is the one church ? " 
 The one church is the brotherhood. It is not to be identi- 
 fied exclusively with this church or that one ; it is the 
 "blessed company of all faithful people/* 
 
 This, one would think, should be a truism. But, as a 
 matter of fact, it is a truth that has been long ignored. 
 But were it recognized, it would be seen that the problem 
 before the churches to-day is not at all what it has been 
 assumed to be, viz.: "How shall we attain church unity ?" 
 The real problem is: "How is the spiritual unity of the 
 brotherhood, which already exists, to be made more effec- 
 tive in the life of the world ?" 
 
 There are men who find any spiritual fact difficult to 
 grasp; they "seek after a sign." Such men will say: "This 
 may be a partial truth, but what, then, becomes of the 
 'visible' church of God?" It might be answered that if 
 the "visible" church existed, it could not be visible. It 
 would still be an ideal to which any group of the one church 
 would bear witness. When the devout Catholic enters into 
 any little chapel of his faith, he has a sample of what he 
 beheves to be the true church. He certainly cannot see 
 the whole body. Well, why can we not see in any com- 
 pany gathered together in Christ's name the "communion 
 of saints" ? The colors of the rainbow may be seen in one 
 drop of water depending from a leaf as well as in the arc 
 which spans the firmament. 
 
 Let us turn back to the example of Jesus, for in his hand 
 we may find a clew to the labyrinth. When he went up to 
 Jerusalem, we assume that he saw a unity such as some 
 would Hke to see to-day, but the fact was quite different. 
 
 When our Saviour was on earth the rule in Palestine was 
 that any ten Jews might establish a synagogue; and there 
 were many synagogues in Jerusalem itself. The "visible" 
 Jewish Church had succeeded after a long struggle in 
 establishing the one altar at Jerusalem — the sign of the 
 unity of the "visible" church— but the "invisible" church 
 
SPIRITUAL UNITY 99 
 
 was nourished in the synagogues, with their wide diversity 
 of opinion. Against the former, St. John tells us,* Jesus 
 uttered an emphatic protest. But against the latter there 
 is no record of any word of disapproval. The reason for 
 that is doubtless due to the fact that he recognized that 
 the "unity of the Jewish people was not in opinion but in 
 conduct." t That was the original unity of the disciples. 
 As to the Jews, the law was the ideal which bound them 
 together and manifested itself in life or conduct, so the 
 bond that held the early disciples together was the love of 
 Jesus, which manifested itself in newness of life. Because 
 this is true, it follows that there was Christian unity before 
 there was church unity I The unity of the Apostolic Church, 
 which is described in Acts, is the same unity which bound 
 together Peter and James and John, while Jesus was with 
 them. And it continued for a hundred years, as the keen 
 eye of Gibbon discerned. "It has been remarked with 
 more ingenuity than truth that the virgin purity of the 
 church was never violated by schism or heresy before the 
 time of Trajan or Hadrian, about a hundred years after 
 the death of Christ. We may observe with more propriety 
 that during that period the disciples of the Messiah were 
 indulged in a freer latitude both of faith and practice than 
 has ever been allowed in succeeding ages." J 
 
 Our Saviour's words on this subject are often quoted, 
 but I am sure that I do not speak for myself alone when I 
 say that it is with a feeling of shock that I hear them 
 quoted! How often are we told that our Saviour's last 
 prayer was " that they all may be one " ? But how seldom 
 is the saying completed! "As thou, Father, art in me 
 and I in thee, that they all may be one in us." That is 
 the unity which will convince ^e world that the Father 
 sent him. This is a prayer for imity. But what sort of 
 
 * John 4 : 1^24. 
 
 t "Landmarks of Early Christianity," Kirsopp Lake, pp. 39-40. 
 
 t Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," chap. XV. 
 
loo THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 unity was it for which our Lord prayed? The answer 
 that is usually given is that it is "organic" unity. But 
 often that is confused with physical or mechanical or cor- 
 porate unity ! * What, then, is the unity of the Father 
 and the Son which our Lord wished the disciples to ex- 
 perience ? In theological language, it is unity in the Holy 
 Spirit. The Father and the Son are not one "person" 
 but two "persons" in one "substance." Is that "sub- 
 stance" physical, so that it may be spoken or thought of 
 as one body? It must be, if the analogy which it is 
 sought to establish is to be complete. We believe that 
 "substance" to be spirit. So must our imity be unless 
 we are willing to be content with something less than that 
 for which our Saviour prayed. 
 
 It is sometimes said that this leads to the "invisible" 
 church, while what we seek is the "visible" church. "Our 
 Lord prayed for a church which the world could see and 
 therefore believe that God had sent him." Is, then, the 
 unity of God visible ? Is it physical, mechanical, or cor- 
 porate? We must answer that it is spiritual. It is not 
 visible, but it is effective. 
 
 It is a sad fact that we must step outside of the churches 
 as they are to-day if we would understand what the unity 
 of the spirit really is. In the family, in business, in daily 
 intercourse of neighbors, in hours of deep distress and in 
 days of national danger, men whom the churches divide 
 realize a true unity of the spirit, and have fellowship one 
 with another. This was the unity for which we believe 
 our Saviour prayed, and the unity which the imperialistic 
 church substituted for it was the unity of the kingdom of 
 this world, which can be maintained only by force. 
 
 To deny that, in spite of the sins and failures of the 
 
 churches, unity does exist, or that when it manifests itself 
 
 the world does recognize that it is divine, or to say that it 
 
 did exist for a little while in the "undivided" church but 
 
 * See above, Chapter VI. 
 
SPIRITUAL UNITl': •' V . '...' i'loi 
 
 has not been seen on this earth forx^iiii6s,*isf k\6t^^iul 
 thought, and will not be entertained by any man who seri- 
 ously considers to what it leads. If we were thankfully to 
 acknowledge the unity we have, we might find a way to 
 make it more effective than it is. 
 
 I know that to some this will seem mere sentiment. 
 But nothing could be farther from the truth. A mere sen- 
 timent is a superficial sensation. This is a sublime spiri- 
 tual fact. It is the very unity of God himself. It is the 
 joy of the Son to do the Father's will.* Such faith had 
 Jesus in the wisdom and love of the Father that no sorrow 
 or pain made that burden too heavy to bear. The cross 
 itself became a Joy, for by it he believed the will of the 
 Father was being accompUshed. And the joy of the 
 Father was bound up with that of the Son; he was "sat- 
 isfied.'* The Father's heart asked nothing more of his 
 child than this perfect submission to his righteous will, 
 even when, as He knew, that will would seem to be the 
 hatred of the Son: even when the agony seemed to be the 
 sign that the Father had forsaken him ! If two or three 
 are gathered together in that "name," that is, in that 
 spirit, of trust and joy, Christ is with them, and where 
 Christ is, there is the church. Each of these individuals 
 has his own peculiar view, and as a result his reaction to 
 the divine influence will be different from that of any 
 other individual, but these differences of temperament can- 
 not divide those who have the "unity of the spirit." The 
 story that is told in the Acts of the Apostles is a beautiful 
 and moving one. Under the influence of a great and awful 
 sorrow, and inspired by a glorious hope, that little com- 
 pany of men and women were, as we are told, of "one 
 heart and one mind," praising God.f That was fellow- 
 ship. But as the numbers increased they naturally and 
 properly assembled together in convenient groups, and 
 
 *See "Theologic Definitions," Frederic Palmer, 
 t Acts 2: 42-47. 
 
I02 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 tltea eac^ ^^o\ip begsyti tti> claim for itself peculiar privileges 
 and advantages. We do not have to go out of the New 
 Testament for that. We turn to the Epistles to the Corin- 
 thians,* and find Paul lamenting that there were some who 
 declared that they were the Church of Peter, and others 
 that they held to the rigid puritanism of James, others so 
 fascinated by the eloquence of Apollos that they would 
 listen to no one else, and some were so devoted to Paul 
 that they called themselves by the name of Paul, and there 
 were others who said that they alone were the true disciples 
 of Christ. To all these Paul said: ^'Is Christ divided? 
 Has any one died for you but Christ?'* The unity is to 
 be found in the atmosphere of God and in loyalty to Jesus 
 Christ, and not in any ecclesiastical arrangements: "Ye 
 were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our 
 Lord.'' 
 
 But when the church grew still larger and passed into 
 the atmosphere of the Roman Empire, and was hypno- 
 tized by the great state, which with all its divisions still 
 manifested unity in the emperor, then we find that the 
 quest for unity soon took the form of uniformity in disci- 
 pline and in doctrine, and as a result Arian began to perse- 
 cute Catholic, and Catholic in turn, when the power came, 
 to persecute Arian; the East broke from the West with 
 awful anathemas; then Franciscan and Dominican, Jesuit 
 and Port Royalist, Catholic and Protestant, Lutheran and 
 Zwinglian, Calvinist and Socinian, Churchman and Puri- 
 tan, Puritan and Anabaptist, generation after generation 
 the awful strife went on, until the whole of Europe was 
 deluged with blood in the Thirty Years' War. 
 
 "Love your enemy, bless your haters, said the Greatest of the 
 great; 
 Christian love among the churches look'd the twin of heathen 
 hate." 
 
 *I Cor. 1:9-13- 
 
SPIRITUAL UNITY 103 
 
 Then at last the state stepped in and said the vendetta 
 must cease, and Lockers philosophy of toleration passed 
 over into the churches. But, alas! the long history had 
 left its influence upon men*s thought, and toleration soon 
 degenerated into indifference and contempt, and the result 
 is what we see in the religious life of the churches to-day. 
 The exclusive spirit which prevents fellowship is the scan- 
 dal of our religion. 
 
 "Is that all ?" it may be asked. "We read in the Acts 
 of the Apostles that the disciples not only 'continued in 
 the Apostles' fellowship' but also in their doctrine'; does 
 not that imply that there must be some definite doctrine 
 upon which all must be agreed ?" There must indeed be 
 some "doctrine": man is an intellectual being, and his 
 mind, as well as his heart, must be in unity with God, and 
 so in unity with those who feel God's presence. But to 
 say that the doctrine must be expressed in some particular 
 form which cannot be changed is to affirm that the mind 
 of man is incapable of progress. It is just because it did 
 progress that the creeds were formulated. But before we 
 consider those, would it not be well for us to ask ourselves 
 what this doctrine was in which the early disciples con- 
 tinued steadfast? It was that Jesus was the Messiah 
 promised by the prophets of old. That was the fact upon 
 which they were all agreed. Are not all Christians agreed 
 upon that ? Not, perhaps, in the same way in which the 
 Jewish Christians were, but in a deeper sense. Do not all 
 believe that Jesus is the "end of the law".? Do not all 
 believe that the "spirit of the Lord was upon him and that 
 he was anointed to preach the gospel to the poor, to give 
 sight to the blind, to bind up the broken-hearted, to set 
 at liberty them that are bound, and to proclaim the accept- 
 able year of the Lord" ? There has never been any devi- 
 ation from that early apostolic doctrine.* They continued, 
 
 * It is to be remembered that we are speaking of the doctrine of the 
 early disciples, and not of its later development under the influence of 
 Paul and John. 
 
I04 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 also, we are told, in "the breaking of bread." If we inter- 
 pret that, as we probably should do, as the Lord's Supper, 
 is it not true that all the churches continue in that ? Some 
 more frequently than others, some with greater ceremonial 
 than others, some with theories which others repudiate, 
 but the fact remains that aU the churches do continue to 
 commemorate the death of the Saviour in the way they 
 believe the Lord commanded. The early Christians also 
 "continued in prayer." Need that be amplified ? Are we 
 not aU of every name agreed that the communion of the 
 disciples with God in prayer is of the essence of the religion 
 of Jesus ^ 
 
 I see no sign that the spiritual unity of the church has 
 been broken. What I do see is that another sort of imity 
 has been substituted for the original one, and that because 
 of that the rivalries of the churches have been increased. 
 I think the time has come when we should ask ourselves 
 whether a more spiritual union should not be sought. 
 
 To attain that it is necessary that we should cease to 
 read into the story that which was not there at the begin- 
 ning. We must not say that "fellowship" means disci- 
 pline, nor that "doctrine" means the CathoUc creeds, nor 
 that the "breaking of bread" means a sacrifice offered by 
 a priest, nor "prayers" a liturgy. But inasmuch as we 
 neither can nor should desire to return to that primitive 
 age, and therefore cannot restore that early expression of 
 unity, it follows that we should seek for some way of ex- 
 pressing our common fellowship, doctrine, communion, and 
 worship. But as we cannot return to the apostolic days 
 and manner, neither should we insist upon returning to 
 any particular age which may most strongly appeal to us. 
 We have a great history, and none of it should be lost. 
 The customs which have been helpful should be continued 
 as long as they remain helpful, but they need not be a 
 hindrance to spiritual unity. 
 
 The mistake of the extreme individualist is that he in- 
 
SPIRITUAL UNITY 105 
 
 sists that the individual is at liberty to ^'join the church*' 
 or not as he sees fit. The truer statement would be that 
 the individual is at liberty to choose the particular kind of 
 church he will join, but of some church he must be a mem- 
 ber, not because he will "go to heU'' if he does not, but 
 because unless he is in communion with some company of 
 Christ's disciples he cannot develop the highest spiritual 
 life of which he is capable. Thus the old saying, ^^ Extra 
 ecclesiam nulla salus'^ is true, though the prevalent inter- 
 pretation which would substitute some particular church 
 makes it false. That mankind should be organized both 
 politically and religiously is necessary, but the particular 
 form which either organization takes will depend upon the 
 time and place and intellectual condition of the individuals 
 who constitute the association. That must be decided by 
 the free activity of the individuals who are most intimately 
 concerned. 
 
 Doubtless it will be objected that this truth does not 
 need to be emphasized in this country; that it has been 
 carried to such an extent that there is danger of the dis- 
 solution of every ecclesiastical bond. All this may be ad- 
 mitted; yet, having won the battle for private judgment, 
 there is need of ceaseless vigilance lest we be caught by 
 the heresy which would lead us back into the bondage 
 from which our fathers escaped. It is not by denying 
 private judgment and the results which must inevitably 
 follow, but by the fulfilment of its obligations, that peace 
 and prosperity are to be found. The problem to-day is to 
 manifest the existing unity so as to protect the inalienable 
 rights of the individual and at the same time make the 
 corporate activities of the whole company effective.* 
 
 * " Christ's people, in the power of his spirit, will give effect to his 
 message and vindicate its truth and value. The world which had 
 rejected and condemned him in his own lifetime will be compelled to 
 reverse its judgment when it witnesses the marvellous work of his 
 spirit within his church. Paul, in his discussion of the comparative 
 value of the different spiritual gifts, expresses in a simpler form the 
 
io6 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 Let us turn, then, to the figures of speech employed by 
 Jesus to express his conception of the spiritual community. 
 He did not take the state as his model nor, like some to- 
 day, call his disciples an army; he spoke of them as a 
 family, as a flock, and as the free citizens of his Father's 
 kingdom. They were a family because they were united 
 in the spirit of brotherhood; they were a flock because they 
 followed the Good Shepherd; they were the citizens of the 
 kingdom of God because the passion of their lives was to 
 do the will of their Father in heaven. This was the three- 
 fold unity which the presence of Jesus produced, and to it 
 we must return in the power of the Holy Spirit. What 
 prevents it? There was never more brotherly kindness 
 among men than there is to-day. All Christians are trying 
 to follow the Good Shepherd, and all will to do the will of 
 God. But in spite of this we have not been able to agree 
 upon the way in which the existing tmity can express itself. 
 Well, if it were once admitted that each of the ways now 
 in use had certain advantages, might we not agree to 
 honor one another in the continuance of those ways which 
 have been found by experience to nourish the spiritual 
 life ? If that were our spirit, we should be able to see why 
 the different plans for church unity on which so much 
 earnest labor and a sincere desire for nobler religious life 
 have been expended, yet have failed, and we believe must 
 continue to fail until we find the way of Jesus in the realiza- 
 tion of the spiritual unity for which our Saviour prayed. 
 
 fundamental Idea of the difficult Johannine passage (15 : 15), 'But if all 
 prophesy, and one come in that believeth not, or one unlearned, he is 
 convinced of all, he is judged of all: and thus are the secrets of his 
 heart made manifest; and so falling down on his face, he will worship 
 God, and report that God is in you of a truth ' (I Cor. 14 : 24, 25). The 
 evangelist gives a wider application to the idea of Paul. He imagines 
 the church as a whole confronting the incredulous world and impress- 
 ing"it with the sense of a divine power, which finds expression in the 
 various Christian activities. In this manner the work of the spirit will 
 have a universal significance, although its proper and exclusive sphere 
 is the church,"— "The Fourth Gospel," E. F. Scott, p. 337. 
 
SPIRITUAL UNITY 107 
 
 I am convinced that a vital unity of Christians cannot 
 be obtained by ignoring the past. I believe that what is 
 now needed is a fair statement of the position of each of 
 the churches, so that there will be a better understanding 
 of the reason, not alone for the original separation, but 
 also for the continuance of each. It is because of this that 
 I shall venture, even at the risk of being thought sectarian, 
 to point out why, in my opinion, the Episcopal Church is 
 not justified in allowing itself to be absorbed into a general 
 American Church, which might fail to safeguard those 
 things without which I fear the larger church might lose 
 much that is of permanent value. But the same is true of 
 all the churches. Not by ignoring our differences, but by 
 emphasizing our principles, shall we be in a position to 
 know what is of permanent and what of merely temporary 
 value. 
 
 I would suggest then that, paradoxical as it may seem, 
 the first step toward more effective association will be 
 found not in ignoring the differences of the churches, but, 
 on the contrary, in glorifying them. "He that doeth truth 
 Cometh to the light, that his works may be made manifest, 
 that they are wrought in God.'' Suppose each of the 
 churches were to set forth in popular form the reasons that 
 lead its members to think that their church was not only 
 justified in separating from some other group in the past, 
 but is also justified in continuing to bear witness to that 
 aspect of truth which seems to them valuable for the whole 
 body of Christ, it might be that there would result such a 
 mutual understanding and respect for one another as would 
 enable each church to learn from every other, and so pre- 
 pare the way for some more effective association of the 
 various churches than is now possible. Too long has the 
 **hand" said to the "foot": "Because you are not the 
 hand you are not of the body." Let us now see what each 
 member has to say for itself, and what it believes to be its 
 value not to itself alone but to the whole body of Christ, 
 
io8 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 It is because I believe that the Episcopal Church has a 
 gift for the American Church of the future that I would 
 not have it enticed into a poor imitation of the Roman 
 Catholic Church; not that I fail to recognize that the 
 Roman Church has also a contribution to make, but only 
 that it is unwilling to make its contribution till every other 
 church has denied the grace which God has given it. And, 
 on the other hand, I believe it would be a loss to the future 
 religious life of this land were the Episcopal Church to be 
 absorbed into a great American religious trust, without the 
 assurance that the things which those who belong to that 
 church have found helpful will be guarded and kept for 
 the welfare of those who are to come after. But what I 
 believe of the church which I know best and love most, I 
 believe also of all the churches. With this in mind, and 
 because I know of no book in reasonable compass which 
 so deals with the Episcopal Church, I venture to ask the 
 reader to look with me into the meaning of that church 
 and consider if it have not a value which has not been 
 appreciated, partly because of the sectarian spirit in which 
 the value of it has been too often exhibited. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 THE ENGLISH TRADITION 
 
 The first question which will be asked by those in the 
 Episcopal Church who have been in the habit of thinking 
 of their church as the exclusive depository of God's grace, 
 is: "What advantage, then, have we who belong to this 
 church, if it be once admitted that the means of grace, 
 which we have been taught can be found only in an organ- 
 ization which enjoys the apostolic ministry, are really ex- 
 istent in other organizations ? " 
 
 In order to answer that question, it might be well for us 
 to remember that the crisis which came to the Jewish 
 Church and ended so disastrously, came also to the Apos- 
 tolic Church, and, therefore, may come to us as well, even 
 if we have the apostolic ministry. 
 
 Only careful students of the New Testament know how 
 near the Christian church came to making the great re- 
 fusal, under the leadership of the prince of the apostles, 
 Simon the son of Jonas. They also know that it was Paul 
 who saved the church, even as the author of the Book of 
 Jonah would have saved the Jewish Church. 
 
 The early Christians inherited from their Jewish fathers 
 a repugnance to the Gentiles. They found it almost im- 
 possible to believe that those who had not enjoyed the 
 privilege of the Law had, nevertheless, been under* the 
 guiding hand of God. So when Paul said that " God hath 
 made of one blood all nations to dwell on the face of the 
 whole earth, that they might seek after him and find him," 
 the question which immediately arose was: "What advan- 
 tage then hath the Jew?'' If the Jew has no exclusive 
 privilege, what advantage has he ? So, in the same way, 
 
 109 
 
no THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 it will be asked to-day: "If we of the Episcopal Church, 
 with our apostolic ministry, have no exclusive privilege, 
 what advantage have we?" In other words: "If this 
 church of ours, differing from our Protestant brethren in 
 manner of worship and in discipline, is unable to enter into 
 perfect conununion with our fellow Christians in this 
 country, would it not be better for us to abandon those 
 things which are peculiar to us, and be absorbed into the 
 religious life of America ? If we do not do this, are we not 
 schismatics?" It must not be forgotten that those who 
 ask the question have no intention of doing this, but that 
 they ask the question simply because they believe it to be 
 valuable in controversy. Nevertheless, it is a fair ques- 
 tion and should be answered. 
 
 What advantage, then, has the Episcopal Church? If 
 by advantage is meant means of eternal salvation, I answer 
 frankly that I believe we have none that is not shared by 
 all the disciples of Jesus. But if by advantage is meant 
 what do we hold in trust for the future religious Ufe of this 
 country, then I say with St. Paul: "Much every way." 
 
 In every organization there are three things which dis- 
 tinguish it: doctrine, discipline, and worship. We shall 
 speak of these a little later. For the moment, I should 
 like to speak in a more general way of certain characteris- 
 tics of the Episcopal Church, which are either lacking or 
 at least are not emphasized in other churches. 
 
 The first is that, so far as I know, the Episcopal Church 
 is the only American religious organization that is con- 
 sciously endeavoring to keep alive the spirit of unity 
 among the English-speaking peoples of the world. And 
 this it is seeking to do by reminding us of the fundamental 
 glory of the English people. This the Episcopal Church 
 tried to do in the beginning and is trying to do to-day. 
 
 Whoever will take the trouble to read carefully the 
 Preface to the Book of Common Prayer will see that our 
 fathers were very particular in stating that they had no 
 
THE ENGLISH TRADITION ill 
 
 desire to depart from the English Church, except in so far 
 as the political conditions of the day made necessary. It 
 required great courage to say such a thing at that time, for 
 the English Church in the colonies lay under deep suspi- 
 cion, and not without reason. Many churchmen had been 
 Tories; not a few of the clergy had deserted the country 
 in its hour of danger. More tiian that: the dislike of the 
 English Church had its roots in the beginning of our colo- 
 nial history. In New England the word "bishop'' was as 
 distasteful as the word "pope" in an Orange lodge! In 
 New York the Dutch Church — ^possibly for reasons not 
 altogether disconnected from real estate — ^was not particu- 
 larly friendly to Trinity Parish, which was practically the 
 Episcopal Church in the southern part of the State. In 
 Pennsylvania the Quakers looked askance at any church 
 which laid emphasis on the value of rites and ceremonies. 
 In the South the Methodists could never forget the flout- 
 ing of the saintly Wesley by the bishops of his day. They 
 contrasted his life with that of the fox-hunting parsons of 
 the Old Dominion, and drew conclusions not favorable to 
 a church which was helpless to deal with open scandal. 
 The Baptists, following the track of the "Winners of the 
 West," carried with them the story of Bunyan's imprison- 
 ment. More than that, the strong belief in democracy 
 was leading to the reversal of King James's shrewd saying, 
 "No bishop, no king," to "No king, no bishop." 
 
 Now, with these strong and not altogether unjustified 
 prejudices affecting the public mind, it required great 
 courage for men who wished to commend their church to 
 the new republic, boldly to state on the first page of their 
 service-book that they had no desire to depart from the 
 mother church of England, save as the poHtical exigencies 
 of the day made necessary. 
 
 Their courage was based upon a true vision of the mean- 
 ing of the conflict from which the colonies had just emerged 
 with triumph. Bishop White and Dr. Duche were as 
 
112 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 truly patriotic as were Washington and John Adams, and 
 much in the same way. They all had a true understand- 
 ing of the meaning of the American Revolution, a meaning 
 that has not penetrated the minds of a good many of our 
 fellow countrymen even to this day. They understood 
 that the war was not against England, but against a Ger- 
 man autocrat.* They believed they were fighting for the 
 liberties of Englishmen. This truth was recognized in 
 England by such men as Burke and Chatham and Coke, 
 of Norfolk — the last-mentioned of whom is said to have 
 drunk the health of Washington every day. This is now 
 recognized by most English historians. Indeed, it is not 
 too much to say that the foundation-stone of the present 
 British Empire was laid on Bunker Hill. Our fathers 
 fought not against England but against a king who, had 
 he been able to have his way, would have made of England 
 what Frederick William made of Prussia. This the wisest 
 of our fathers saw. While they fought against the soldiers 
 of the king, whether sent from England or from Germany, 
 their hearts were true to the motherland, and they desired 
 to found in this country an organization which would keep 
 aHve the remembrance of the ideal England. 
 
 They were wise again in understanding that that ideal 
 England was to be found not in the changing government 
 of the day. But they knew that there is a difference be- 
 tween political organization and the great people which the 
 government of the day may or may not represent. They 
 believed that the heart of England was to be found in the 
 English Church, which Mrs. Humphry Ward has finely 
 described as ''England in its aspect of faith.'' 
 
 It is because the Episcopal Church is a potent force in 
 keeping alive the remembrance of the ideal England and 
 the ideal America which are essentially one, that the value 
 of that church primarily consists. Most thoughtful men 
 
 * While George III was born in England, his temperament was essen- 
 tially German. 
 
THE ENGLISH TRADITION 113 
 
 are agreed that in the crisis of the world to-day the future 
 of civilization largely depends upon the faithful and earnest 
 co-operation, the mutual understanding and reciprocal re- 
 spect of these two great branches of the English-speaking 
 peoples of the world. 
 
 The conditions have greatly changed since our fathers 
 wrote the Preface to the Prayer-Book. The opposition of 
 our Protestant brethren to the Church of England has 
 died down, and, if it exists at all, it is now directed against 
 the "establishment" rather than against the church. The 
 Lutherans cannot be expected to be very enthusiastic, be- 
 cause their traditions are largely German; the Roman 
 Catholic Church is intensely hostile, first, because it is 
 largely Irish, and, secondly, because the stronghold of Prot- 
 estantism has been transferred from Germany to England. 
 In England the Protestant Church is the representative of 
 the people and the people are loyal to it. 
 
 Is there not need, then, for just such a church as this — • 
 a church which will influence the life of the people of this 
 land so as to cement the spiritual imion of the great race 
 of which we form so important a part ? 
 
 The second thing to which attention should be called, 
 because I think it characteristic of the Anglican com- 
 munion to a degree not found in any other, is the spirit of 
 comprehension. The English Reformation, which was, it 
 must be admitted, marred by fanaticism, political wire- 
 pulling, and sometimes by an ignoble opportunist spirit of 
 compromise, had, nevertheless, a great ideal — a nobler one, 
 I believe, than any other church existing at that time. 
 The English reformers did honestly try to build a religious 
 home for the English people, in which men whose sympa- 
 thies were Puritan could worship side by side with those 
 whose sympathies were Catholic, provided the latter were 
 not "papists" — that is, who were loyal to the nation when 
 it came into conflict with the church. I do not say the 
 ideal was perfectly realized — ^few ideals are — but I do say 
 
114 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 it has influenced the life of the English people in a way we 
 might rejoice to have the churches of America influence 
 our national life. For, whatever may be our opinion of 
 an established church, however strongly we may beUeve in 
 Cavour^s dictum that "a free church in a free state" is 
 better than an established church to which all must con- 
 form, it cannot be denied that an estabhshed church has 
 this advantage, that it does impress upon men the truth 
 that they are, by birth, as truly members of a church as 
 they are members of a nation; that it is as natural for them 
 to be enrolled in the church by baptism as it is for them 
 to be admitted to the privilege of citizenship; that, at the 
 proper time, they should by confirmation themselves ac- 
 knowledge this privilege, and take their place at their 
 Father's table and be fed with the bread of life till the end. 
 Undoubtedly this has disadvantages as well. It may lead 
 to mere formalism and lessen the sense of personal respon- 
 sibility in making a choice of the life which they should lead. 
 But this is an accident and not a consequence of the life in 
 a reUgious nation. 
 
 In this country, where Hberty is so precious — and it can- 
 not be too precious — there has been a constant tendency 
 to disintegration. The result of the multiplication of 
 churches has been to accustom people to look on the vari- 
 ous churches as religious clubs. So, just as we have clubs 
 where men are associated together because they agree — for 
 example, politically, or where the tradition of the college 
 from which they graduated is kept alive, or others where 
 the imity is found in similar tastes in art or literature or 
 music, more and more it is coming to be felt that a man is 
 welcome in one or other of these religious clubs if he hap- 
 pens to be in entire agreement with the prevailing opinion 
 of those who are the charter members. But if he be not in 
 entire agreement, it is thought that he may not be accept- 
 able to the "admissions committee," and tiierefore he does 
 not seek for admission, because he does not believe that 
 
THE ENGLISH TRADITION 115 
 
 he will feel entirely at home there, and has no reason to 
 suppose that he is missing anything that is of permanent 
 value in life. Or even if he be assured that he will be 
 welcome, even though he do not agree with the opinion 
 prevailing at the moment, he hesitates to enter a company 
 where it will be supposed that he accepts the traditional 
 opinion which not a few of the members believe to be the 
 essence of membership. The result of this wide-spread 
 opinion is that not only have the churches disintegrated in 
 an attempt to furnish meeting-places for those of con- 
 genial tastes, but also the individual churches are rapidly 
 disintegrating, and multitudes of men who need the church 
 and whom the church needs are drifting from the one organ- 
 ization where the deepest things of life are constantly kept 
 before their minds. 
 
 Now the Episcopal Church, while it has not committed 
 itself to a belief in an established church, has kept alive 
 the English conception of the church as the home for the 
 children of various temperaments and various degrees of 
 religious culture. It has taught that the church is not a 
 club — where those who are members are in entire agree- 
 ment — but has other grounds of appeal, the essential one 
 being loyalty to Jesus Christ, making that the link be- 
 tween widest differences within the fold. The result has 
 been that though the Episcopal Church is not large as com- 
 pared with some others, it is vital and growing in influence. 
 
 There are ministers in its orders who hold a theory of 
 the Sacrament which the plain man cannot distinguish 
 from the Roman doctrine of transubstantiation, which he 
 believes to be a delusion. On the other hand, there are 
 men in its pulpits who are thought to be preaching — as 
 men in his day believed Phillips Brooks was preaching — 
 the doctrine of Unitarianism. To the sectarian this seems 
 a shocking state of affairs. But to the churchman it is a 
 glory. It may be said: "Why is it a glory? Does it not 
 mean tibat your church speaks with an uncertain voice? 
 
Ii6 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 That you have no standards by which the teaching of your 
 church can be judged?" The answer is that we have 
 standards. Of those we will speak later. But for the 
 moment it is sufficient to say that the test is to be found in 
 the loyalty of every one of these ministers to what he be- 
 lieves to be the teaching of the church of which he is a 
 minister. There can be no other test which does not be- 
 come a tyranny. The conclusion hastily drawn that be- 
 cause they do not all look at the question from the same 
 angle one must be wrong is not justified by the facts. 
 The truth is, that just because the Episcopal Church has 
 held to the tradition of the English Church and has tried 
 to make a home for men of various opinions, there must 
 be found in its standards dififerences which each is justified 
 in emphasizing. The time may come when a minister or 
 layman — and there is no doctrine for one that is not bind- 
 ing upon the other — comes to the conclusion that he can- 
 not conscientiously continue in the ministry or member- 
 ship of a church which does not emphasize exclusively that 
 aspect of truth which he believes to be of vital importance. 
 In this case he must withdraw. I do not believe there will 
 be found any man in the ministry of the Episcopal Church 
 who is ministering at its altars or preaching from its pul- 
 pits who does not believe that he is in thorough loyalty 
 to the church which he represents. But this must be de- 
 cided by each man for himself. No man's loyalty is to 
 be judged by another's conscience. "Does not this lead 
 to confusion?" I believe it leads to catholicity of spirit. 
 The spirit of comprehension predicates differences of 
 opinion and at the same time recognizes that the true bond 
 of union is loyalty to the church, which is wiser and greater 
 than the individual.* 
 
 * An analogous spirit, also inherited from England, is found in our 
 political life, where the minority peacefully submits to the decision of 
 the majority, because subconsciously they recognize that the judgment 
 of the whole people may be trusted to do what is right. See "Charac- 
 ter and Opinion in the United States," George Santayana, p. 197. 
 
THE ENGLISH TRADITION 117 
 
 Is not such a church greatly needed in this country, 
 where the scoffing criticism that we *'have but one soup 
 and a hundred religions" is not without force? Emerson 
 says that ** Protestantism began by establishing many 
 churches in which each man has had his own pew, and 
 that it may end in every man having his own church"! 
 It is to this we are tending. And that means that we are 
 tending to the end of all churches. The only possible way 
 in which religious men can be held together is by substitut- 
 ing loyalty to Christ for theological agreement. 
 
 Such a church is greatly needed. No one of the existing 
 churches can supply that particular need. Each has some 
 contribution to make to the ideal American Church, but 
 the one which has done more than any other to allow the 
 widest interpretation of the standard to which all are loyal 
 cannot be absorbed into the general religious life of the 
 country without loss to the religious life of the commun- 
 ity until this principle has been recognized and applied. 
 Every church is suffering for this lack of comprehension. 
 The children of fathers and mothers whose early religious 
 impressions were gained in a Ptolemaic universe cannot 
 worship in a church which satisfies their parents, for they 
 are living in the universe discovered by Darwin, unless it 
 is understood that the widest liberty of individual inter- 
 pretation is not only tolerated but also welcomed. 
 
 For these two reasons it seems to me that the Episcopal 
 Church should be kept intact until these things have been 
 accepted as truisms in the religious life of America. 
 
 But if, on the other hand, those who are now members 
 of the Episcopal Church take the other path and say, "We 
 alone have a ministry that is valid; we have a privilege 
 that no other church can claim," then, in my judgment — 
 and I believe it would be the judgment of Paul and the 
 judgment of Jesus — we shall be in danger of a dreadful dis- 
 ease: the hardening of the arteries of human sympathy, ac- 
 companied by excessively high ecclesiastical blood-pressure. 
 
ii8 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 But if we say to ourselves and to others, "We have no 
 exclusive privilege, but we have great and unique advan- 
 tages, which by the grace of God we will hold in trust for 
 the church of the future, which will mean a better nation, 
 a better church, and a better world," we shall have ac- 
 complished the purposes of God, and done our part to 
 make men and women of the English-speaking race a 
 nobler power in the future than they have been in the 
 past. Then may be seen that ideal American Church 
 which in the large spirit of comprehension becomes the 
 servant of the world. 
 
 It is not a pleasant thing to be told, but it is well that 
 Episcopalians should be reminded, that many of their 
 brethren of other churches feel that the weakness of the 
 Episcopal Church lies in what they believe to be a lack of 
 loyalty to Christ. Indeed, that is what they believe con- 
 stitutes the difference between high and low churchmen. 
 The latter they think of as more "evangelicar' than the 
 others. I feel that I can speak with a certain authority 
 on this question, because my early training was entirely 
 among high churchmen, and people who more faithfully 
 endeavored to follow the "footsteps of that most blessed 
 life," I do not think could be found in any company of 
 Christians. 
 
 I believe the misapprehension is due to a confusion on 
 the part of "evangelicals" in all the churches between per- 
 sonal devotion to the Jesus of the gospels and loyalty to 
 Christ. It is due to this that it is often supposed that 
 members of the Episcopal Church have transferred from 
 Jesus to the church the devotion which is his due. But 
 this I believe to be due to a misunderstanding of the 
 churchman's conception of the church. He does not con- 
 sider the church as the rival of Jesus, but as the manifes- 
 tation of his spirit. He feels that in being obedient to the 
 tradition of the church he is following the footsteps of our 
 Lord. Here, I think, we find the dividing line between the 
 
THE ENGLISH TRADITION 119 
 
 Anglican and the German Church historians. Such a 
 great scholar and teacher as Harnack seems to think that 
 after the days of the primitive church there was a falling 
 away, and that the true escape from the power of the 
 "secular" is to be found in a "return to Jesus." How dif- 
 ferent is this from the teaching of the late Prof. A. V. G. 
 Allen, who followed the Anglican tradition ! To him the 
 development of the churches history was not a lapse into 
 the secular, but rather an evolution under the guidance of 
 the spirit of God, which is the spirit of Christ. To those 
 who so read history, while they must admit that there 
 have been sad departures from the spirit of the Master, 
 the way to enter into his spirit is not by a return to the 
 past — ever an impossibility, and therefore an undesirable 
 thing to seek — but by the fuller understanding of the lead- 
 ing of the same spirit as it is manifested in the continuous 
 progress of the church. The "Continuity of Christian 
 Thought" is more than a happy title to a most instructive 
 book; it is also a summary of a vital philosophy of history* 
 If the spirit of Christ is being manifested in the church, 
 then loyalty to the church is loyalty to Christ. 
 
 But it may be asked: "Is the spirit of Christ being mani- 
 fested in the churches.?" If not, then of course there is 
 no reason why any devout Christian should continue in 
 their communion. But it has already been admitted that 
 the spirit of Jesus is seen in the lives of men and women in 
 every communion. "Yes," it will be said, "but this spirit 
 is the result of the individual communion of the soul with 
 the Master." This is true. But it is not the whole truth. 
 It has been forgotten that "No man liveth to himself." 
 We are individuals, but we are more than individuals. We 
 are a part of the past which has made us what we are. 
 No man can understand the influence of Jesus who does 
 not know more than his own individual experience has re- 
 vealed. "I am a part of all that I have met." That is a 
 truth which the Anglican and Roman communions have 
 
I20 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 emphasized more than the Protestant churches as a whole. 
 I am far from denying that in this there has too often been 
 a failure to develop the life of the individual soul by fresh 
 communion with Jesus, and for that reason it is important 
 that the Protestant churches, which have held so tena- 
 ciously to that vital truth, should not perish from the 
 earth. But, on the other hand, if that individual experi- 
 ence be not supplemented and enlarged by what we call 
 the historic consciousness, there will be inevitably a shrink- 
 age of the content of reHgion, and it will have no appeal 
 to those who are beginning to understand, as never before 
 was possible, what a wonderful thing the Church of the 
 Living God is. 
 
 The Episcopal Church has maintained this historic con- 
 sciousness by the perpetuation of the ancient rites and 
 ceremonies and the constant use of those forms of worship 
 which have come down from ancient times. For this rea- 
 son, too, it is loath to give up the expression of its living 
 faith as it was expressed in days when men thought differ- 
 ently from what they do to-day of the world, of man, and 
 of God. 
 
 It may be said: "All this is far more true of the Roman 
 Catholic Church than of any Protestant church.'' This 
 may be admitted without in any way derogating from the 
 glory of the Anglican communion. The Roman Catholic 
 Church has indeed kept to the tradition of the fathers, but 
 it has not only lacked discrimination and so embodied in 
 the tradition much that is alien to the spirit of Christ; it 
 has also laid such undue emphasis upon the organization 
 as to obscure if not destroy the spontaneity of the individ- 
 ual soul. There is a truth in the much-condemned "Via 
 Media" which needs to be recognized to-day. The ques- 
 tion is not between Rome and Geneva, the question is be- 
 tween autocracy and democracy. Either carried to its 
 logical conclusion becomes a curse to mankind. The lib- 
 erty that finds its highest expression in service is the ideal 
 for which the world longs. 
 
THE ENGLISH TRADITION 121 
 
 This has been the ideal of the Anglican communion, and 
 it believes that it can only be obtained by the union of the 
 wide experience of the past guiding and inspiring the indi- 
 vidual experience of the present. To hold the balance 
 even is no more easy here than in other departments of 
 life. And it may well be that in the Anglican communion 
 the individual soul has been sometimes overlooked in the 
 endeavor to reproduce a sense of the corporate communion. 
 It, then, is not true, as is sometimes supposed, that the 
 Episcopal Church is indifferent to the devotion of the soul 
 to Christ, but, rather, that its emphasis has been laid upon 
 the larger communion. 
 
 If this be true, then it will be seen that the Episcopal 
 Church does not think of the church as the rival of Christ, 
 but rather as a potent — though by no means exclusive — 
 means of full communion with him. 
 
 Until that is recognized there can, I think, be no real 
 understanding of the reason for its insistence upon the per- 
 petuation of its doctrine, discipline, and worship. To the 
 consideration of these we will now turn, not in the conven- 
 tional order in which they have been just named, but in 
 the order which may make clearer what it is in each that 
 we value. 
 
 The decision of our fathers to follow the Church of Eng- 
 land so far as possible in a republic freed from aU interfer- 
 ence by the state met with a serious difl&culty in perpetuat- 
 ing the ministry of the English Church. Before 1787 there 
 had been no bishops in America, and every minister of the 
 Church of England in the colonies had been obliged to seek 
 ordination in England. How great the difficulties were 
 the records of travel in those days reveal. Besides the 
 "peril by water," the expense was almost prohibitive. As 
 a result many of the clergy had come out from England, 
 with all the prejudices which one would expect from men 
 trained in the great universities and now thrown into a 
 land, as it seemed to them, but half civilized. The piety 
 
122 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 of the mother church at that time was at a low ebb, and 
 some of the men who came out to minister in the new land 
 were those who could obtain no benefice at home * The 
 wonder is not that there should have been imworthy min- 
 isters, but that the English Church should have survived 
 at all. What appeal could such men make to the youth 
 of this land ? And how could they compete with the min- 
 isters of other churches who had been trained in the native 
 colleges and were filled with an enthusiasm for the new 
 republic and had a profound faith in the people whom 
 they knew and loved ? Moreover, not only were the min- 
 isters of the English Church at a disadvantage, but the 
 laity were without the full administration of the rites of 
 their church. No children could be confirmed, with the 
 result that many were never admitted to the communion, 
 and those who were admitted were often lacking in that 
 serious preparation which would fit them to undertake the 
 responsibilities of their membership. 
 
 How great must have been the temptation to follow the 
 example of Wesley and appoint overseers who would guide 
 the flock in the wilderness ! How practical must it have 
 seemed to the "man in the street" to accept the suggestion 
 of ^Benjamin Franklin that he and John Adams should con- 
 secrate Dr. Seabury! How strong must have been the 
 repugnance to seek favors from a church which had so 
 shamefully neglected its children who were scattered 
 abroad! The reference, in the Preface to the Prayer- 
 Book, to the "long continuance of the nursing care and 
 protection" of the Church of England must seem to be 
 either an example of biting irony or else an imitation of 
 the fulsome and insincere flattery of the Preface to the 
 King James version of the Bible. But Bishop White, 
 while not without a sense of humor, was not the man to 
 
 * Those who do not care to read more serious histories may turn to 
 Thackeray's "The Virginians" for a picture of the English Church in 
 the colonies immediately before the Revolution. 
 
THE ENGLISH TRADITION 123 
 
 indulge in such subtlety as irony, and was too honest to 
 flatter any man. The truth is, the "nursing care'* had 
 not been altogether lacking, but it had been provided, not 
 by the bishop of London, to whose diocese the colonial 
 churches were officially assigned, but by the missionary 
 spirit of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in 
 Foreign Parts. "Queen Anne's Bounty" and some com- 
 munion services given by one of the Georges had a certain 
 material value, but the spiritual gifts were the offerings of 
 a voluntary society, without which the English Church in 
 this land would have perished. 
 
 "Why, then," it may be asked, "were our fathers so 
 solicitous to perpetuate the ministry of the Church of Eng- 
 land when they might have followed the example of those 
 who set up a new form of civil government ?" No doubt 
 the first reason was that they desired to perpetuate the 
 ministry with which those who were already members of 
 the church were familiar, and also, as has been already 
 pointed out, they were desirous of continuing in the new 
 land the church which had been a unifying force in the old. 
 Of course those who hold to the exclusive theory of the 
 episcopate will see in this an indication of the overruling 
 Providence which insured the one true ministry to this 
 nation! But we are dealing not with theories but with 
 the facts of history. So far as we can discover. Bishop 
 White and his fellow laborers held no such exclusive view 
 of the ministry.* In the Preface to the Prayer-Book they 
 simply claim for themselves the same liberty as was en- 
 joyed by "the different religious denominations of Chris- 
 tians in these States ... to model and organize their 
 respective churches and forms of worship and discipline in 
 such manner as they might judge most convenient for their 
 future prosperity." 
 
 * That Bishop White seriously contemplated an abandonment of the 
 Episcopacy is well known. See "The Holy Communion in Great 
 Britain and America," J. Brett Langstaff. 
 
124 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 Our fathers then determined to perpetuate the mmis- 
 try of the English Church because they deemed it "con- 
 venient" so to do. Unquestionably, there were men in 
 the English Church at that time who believed that no 
 ministry save the Episcopal was in accordance with God's 
 will, just as there were probably to be found as late as the 
 nineteenth century men who held to the nonjurors' be- 
 lief in the divine right of kings. But they were the ex- 
 ceptions. Tillotson, Bishop Butler, and Paley were the 
 representatives of the prevailing opinion in the English 
 Church in the eighteenth century, and they would have 
 repudiated such a theory. They also believed in episcopacy 
 because it was "convenient" or expedient. 
 
 So much for the reasons which led our fathers to insist 
 upon a ministry which was apparently opposed to the 
 democratic spirit of their day. They were subconsciously 
 influenced by the tradition of the English Church, as the 
 framers of the federal Constitution were influenced by 
 the tradition of the political life of the English people. 
 
 To this tradition we must now turn if we would know 
 why to many thoughtful Christians the Episcopal minis- 
 try seems to have a value for this day and country. In 
 this I shall not argue nor shall I quote authorities. The 
 opinions expressed are the result of many years of study, 
 and those who are interested will find the authorities open 
 to them as to every student of the history of the church. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF THE MINISTRY 
 
 In the Epistle to the Ephesians St. Paul says: "He that 
 descended is the same also that ascended up far above all 
 heavens that he might fill all things; and he gave some to 
 be apostles and some evangelists and some pastors and 
 teachers for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of 
 the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ." It 
 will be noted that in this description of the ministry as it 
 existed in his day the apostle says that it was one of the 
 "gifts" which followed the ascension of Christ. What 
 we understand by this somewhat unfamiliar language is 
 not that the ministry was settled in a permanent form 
 by Jesus when he walked with his disciples on the earth, 
 but was the result of the influence of the spirit of Christ, 
 which led to the establishment of a ministry which was 
 found suitable for the upbuilding of the church and mak- 
 ing men good. These men were not "officials." They 
 were what they were because each had some particular 
 "gift" or aptitude for the particular work to which he 
 felt himself called. One man showed that he had the 
 "apostolic" gift. When the word "apostle" is used to- 
 day we are apt to think of one of the Twelve whom Jesus 
 appointed, whom he called apostles or ambassadors. They 
 were to go forth and bear witness to the fact that the king 
 had come, and that all who would be saved must obey 
 the law of the kingdom of God; just as William the Con- 
 queror sent his ambassadors to the Saxon thanes, bidding 
 all to come and "lay their hands in his" and work loyally 
 with him for the building up of a true kingdom of Eng- 
 land. After the death of Judas, we read that the Eleven 
 came together to choose one to take the place of the traitor. 
 
 12$ 
 
126 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 We are told that the reason they did this was that they 
 felt it necessary that there should be twelve to carry on 
 the work to which the Master had called them. There is 
 no hint that this was the ordination of a minister, still less 
 that the Eleven had in mind to perpetuate a "succession"; 
 on the contrary, we are told that their purpose was to com- 
 plete what might be called the twelve witnesses, the repre- 
 sentatives of the Twelve Tribes. They said that those 
 only should be considered who had been familiar with the 
 ministry of Jesus from the preaching of John the Baptist 
 until "he was taken up." Two such men were found. 
 They did not "elect" one of them; they cast lots, and 
 "the lot fell upon Matthias, and he was numbered among 
 the eleven apostles." Probably the Eleven laid hands 
 upon him, but no mention is made of it if they did. 
 These men were not in any sense "officials"; they were 
 witnesses to the ministry and resurrection of Jesus. In 
 the nature of the case they could have no "successors." 
 
 But by the time of Paul the name "apostle" was being 
 given to others who had never seen Jesus, and therefore 
 could not be numbered among the Twelve, though they 
 were carrying on the work for which the Twelve had been 
 originally chosen. As the Twelve had been sent forth by 
 Jesus to declare that the king, in the person of Jesus, was 
 now among men, so the new "apostles" were going forth 
 to declare that Christ the king of glory was as truly in 
 human life as Jesus had been in Palestine. They were 
 not the ambassadors of Jesus as the Twelve had been, but 
 "ambassadors of Christ." Some of these men had not 
 seen the Twelve as had Paul, though he is emphatic in 
 stating that he had not been ordained by them. The only 
 ordination Paul had received was from Christ himself. 
 In other words, he had received the apostolic "gift." So 
 had many others, most of whom are scarcely now known 
 by name, such as Junius and Andronicus as well as Barna- 
 bas. The latter can never be forgotten, and the significance 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF THE MINISTRY 127 
 
 of his **gift*^ has been kept alive in the Prayer-Book by 
 the beautiful Collect for St. Barnabas Day, written in 
 
 1549:* 
 
 "O Lord God Almighty, who did endue thy holy Apostle 
 Barnabas with singular gifts of the Holy Ghost; leave us 
 not, we beseech thee, destitute of thy manifold gifts, nor 
 yet of grace to use them always to thy honour and glory; 
 through Jesus Christ our Lord." 
 
 But Paul had more than the ambassadorial gift; he was 
 first known as the "chief speaker," but later he showed 
 that he had pre-eminently the love of organization — which 
 later was called "government." He not only converted 
 individuals, he organized his converts into local congrega- 
 tions or churches. So it came to pass that the gift of or- 
 ganization became the characteristic of an apostle even 
 more than the gift of preaching. Paul was soon surpassed 
 by Apollos as a preacher. 
 
 Then began that process of differentiation which is the 
 sign of progress. Men were found with a special gift for 
 preaching but with no peculiar "executive ability" as we 
 say to-day. These were called "prophets." Others could 
 neither organize nor preach but they were gifted with a 
 marvellous memory. They remembered what they them- 
 selves had heard the Lord say, or they could accurately 
 report what they had been told by those who had been the 
 eye-witnesses of the wonderful works of Jesus. These 
 were the "evangelists." Some were oral reciters, others 
 committed to writing what they had gathered, and so pre- 
 served the tradition which was later to be worked into its 
 present form by those whom we call evangelists par ex- 
 cellence — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Some read of 
 this gift of ministry and identify it with the revivalist. 
 Nothing could be more different. The "evangelist" did 
 not "cause his voice to be heard in the street"; he was a 
 
 * See "The Teacher's Prayer-Book," by Bishop Barry, p. 203, where 
 Barnabas is called "The Apostle of the Holy Ghost." 
 
128 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 shy and retiring person. But what do we not owe to him ! 
 It is to these gifted men that we owe the stories of the Gos- 
 pels. One remembered or reported the account of those 
 who had heard Jesus tell the story of the Good Samaritan; 
 another told the story of the Prodigal Son. 
 
 Besides those whose gifts were extraordinary there were 
 men who seemed to have no gift. They were not business 
 men like the organizing apostles; not preachers like the 
 prophets; they had no great memory and were without 
 literary gifts; they were the "weak things" which God 
 chose to do the great work of the ministry. These undis- 
 tinguished men had nothing to offer but a loving heart. 
 They became "pastors," the tender shepherds of the flock. 
 They gathered the little ones and made the way of Jesus 
 seem easy to them; they comforted those in sorrow and 
 strengthened those who laid down their lives in the days 
 of persecution. Like their Master they "gathered the 
 lambs in their bosom and gently led those that were with 
 young." 
 
 And, lastly, there were men who had none of the gifts 
 so far enumerated, but were men of unusual intellectual 
 ability. These men became "teachers." Much of this 
 teaching must have been monotonous in the extreme. 
 Many of the new converts could not read and had to be 
 taught the principles of the doctrine of Christ: "Line upon 
 line, here a little and there a little." The Lord^s Prayer 
 must have been one of the first things taught; then the 
 stories of the Old and New Testament, specially the Ser- 
 mon on the Moimt; and then in time some simple state- 
 ment of those "things which were most firmly believed" — 
 a "form of sound words." These teachers were the fore- 
 runners of that notable band of scholars, whose "succes- 
 sors" are in every church. 
 
 This earliest ministry, in which is found neither bishop, 
 priest, nor deacon, is technically known as the ministry of 
 gifts. These men were not officials; they were not a caste; 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF THE MINISTRY 129 
 
 they were not "clerg)mien'*; they were the representatives 
 of that spontaneous enthusiasm which followed from the 
 conviction that the Lord who had died was alive again 
 and was in communion with those who were willing to 
 obey him. 
 
 Any heathen philosopher, detached from this enthusias- 
 tic movement, might have foretold that this could not con- 
 tinue. It did not. But the miracle is that the church 
 should have been able to pass from this spontaneous min- 
 istry to an official ministry without losing entirely the 
 glory of the first. That this was done is due to the spirit 
 of Christ working through the mighty personality of 
 Paul. 
 
 Very early, however, in the history of the church, as we 
 see from the Epistles to the Corinthians, a protest was 
 made against the new "apostles." It was being claimed 
 that they only might be called apostles who had been sent 
 forth by Jesus himself or had been commissioned by the 
 Twelve at Jerusalem. Against this Paul vehemently pro- 
 tested. The ministry, he said, is not from man but from 
 God direct, and its credentials are to be found in the work 
 which it is able to do. Is a prophet able to bring souls to 
 Christ? Then he is a minister of Christ. Is an apostle 
 able to establish churches in which the name of Christ is 
 glorified and the sacrament of the Lord's Supper is cele- 
 brated to the edification of the body of Christ? Then 
 such an one is an apostle, even though he has not seen 
 Jesus in the flesh nor received "letters" from the church 
 in Jerusalem.* 
 
 Our s)mipathies are so entirely with Paul in this contro- 
 versy that perhaps we have failed to do justice to "those 
 at Jerusalem." It may be that there was far more than 
 Bauer and other writers of the Tubingen school have seen 
 
 * Phillips Brooks once said: "Bishop Meade did not make me a 
 minister; he authorized me to exercise my ministry in the Episcopal 
 Church." 
 
13© THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 in this conflict. It may well be that the Twelve at Jeru- 
 salem who had never known the enthusiasm of those who 
 preached to the Gentiles felt that the day would come 
 when this early enthusiasm would begin to wane, and that 
 it would be necessary to have "officials" to carry on the 
 work begun by the ministry of "gifts."* At any rate, 
 that is what did actually take place. When the church, 
 under the leadership of Paul, passed over into Europe, and 
 its numbers increased in a marvellous way, and men and 
 women who had never had the training of the Jew nor of 
 the proselyte were drawn to the Saviour; when Greeks, 
 with their experience of local independence, were formed 
 into congregations, organization now became as important 
 for the welfare of the church as "gifts" had been at the 
 beginning. A well-articulated organization was ready to 
 the hand of the church prepared by the Roman Empire.f 
 So the earlier ministry of which St. Paul spoke in writing 
 to the Ephesians gave way to a new ministry, equally 
 divine. We hear now of "apostles, prophets, teachers, 
 miracles, gifts of healing, helps, governments j diversities of 
 tongues." Still later we find an unknown writer speaking 
 of those who "resist governments" and "speak evil of dig- 
 nitaries" as the enemies of the Lord. 
 
 With the increase of members came a gradual cooling of 
 the early enthusiasm, and so a new problem presented 
 
 * A conflict not unlike that between the apostles to the Gentiles and 
 *' those at Jerusalem" arose when Wesley inaugurated his revival in 
 the English Church. Latitudinarians, like the great and wise Arch- 
 bishop Tillotson, were suspicious of an "enthusiasm" which violated 
 all the conventionalities of the established church. This does not mean 
 that men like Tillotson and the author of "The Whole Duty of Man" 
 were irreligious men, but simply that they valued the tradition which 
 they had inherited. See Lecky's "History of England in the Eigh- 
 teenth Century," vol. II, pp. 560-561. 
 
 t Headlam may be right in saying that the episcopate originated in 
 Asia Minor, in which case it probably arose earlier than I am inclined 
 tolthink. But Asia Minor was a part of the Roman Empire — the 
 model on which the church founded its organization. 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF THE MINISTRY 131 
 
 itself to the church. The difficulty now was not so much 
 to make converts as to keep those already made faithful. 
 How was that to be done ? If there were not enough men 
 endowed with the "gifts" which at the first were the proof 
 of their ministry, what was to take their place? What 
 would we not give for some record of what the men who 
 succeeded Paul and his first disciples said of this matter! 
 We have no such record, and therefore are compelled by 
 the exercise of a sympathetic imagination to guess what 
 took place. In this there is, of course, danger of mistake. 
 But it is the only path open to us, and as we follow it it 
 seems to lead to an understanding of the evolution of the 
 church which we can gain in no other way. We venture, 
 then, to say that what probably took place was something 
 like this: Good and wise men said to themselves: "The 
 church must be organized. An official ministry must take 
 the place of the early unofficial ministry of the 'charis- 
 mata.*" Whether it was as deliberate as we have sug- 
 gested or not, the fact remains that this is what did hap- 
 pen. The empire was organized, with its representative in 
 each village and district. Each city had its Decurion, and 
 over them was a consular in charge of a large district called 
 a diocese. Then the empire was divided into four divi- 
 sions, over each of which presided a prc^fect, who in turn 
 owed obedience to the emperor himself.* The church fol- 
 lowed the path of least resistance. The "pastor" now be- 
 came the "elder " of the local congregation. The " teacher " 
 became the schoolmaster, developing finally into such uni- 
 versity lecturers as Origen and Clement at Alexandria. 
 The "prophet" continued to be what he had always been, 
 a preacher. But it is significant of the deadening influence 
 of institutionalism that the prophet tends more and more 
 to disappear. The evangelist became the chronicler or 
 scribe, and the apostle assumed the name given first to the 
 
 * See Gibbon's " Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," chap. 
 XVII. 
 
132 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 presbyter, and became known as the bishop par excellence-* 
 he no longer remained in the local church, but became the 
 overseer of the district in which there were many churches, 
 as the consular was overseer of many towns. 
 
 This is the point at which the Episcopalian would be 
 glad to have had the evolution pause. But having ap- 
 pealed to Caesar, the church in its organization had to go 
 to Caesar. The diocesan bishop could no more retain his 
 independence than the prcefect could be independent of the 
 emperor. The larger divisions of the empire had their 
 prcefects and the church followed its example and placed 
 archbishops or metropolitans over the dioceses. Here is 
 the point at which the English Church paused. But the 
 last step had to be taken, and the evolution on the lines of 
 the empire ended in the pope. 
 
 *"The public functions of religion were solely intrusted to the 
 established ministers of the church, the bishops and presbyters — two 
 appellations which, in their first origin, appear to have distinguished 
 the same office and the same order of persons. The name of presbyter 
 was expressive of their age, or, rather, of their gravity and wisdom. 
 The title of bishop denoted their inspection over the faith and manners 
 of the Christians who were committed to their pastoral care. But the 
 most perfect equality of freedom requires the directing hand of a 
 superior magistrate; . . . and the order of public deliberations soon 
 introduces the office of a president (and) induced the primitive Chris- 
 tians an honorable and perpetual magist/y. ... It was under these 
 circumstances that the lofty title of bishop began to raise itself above 
 the humble appellation of presbjrter. . . . The advantages of the 
 episcopal form of government, which appears to have been introduced 
 before the end of the first century, were so obvious, and so important 
 for the future greatness as well as the present peace of Christianity, 
 that it was adopted without delay by all the societies which were 
 already scattered over the empire. . . . 
 
 "Such was the mild and equal constitution by which Christians were 
 governed more than a hundred years after the death of the apostles. 
 Every society formed within itself a separate and independent republic. 
 . . . Towards the end of the second century the churches of Greece 
 and Asia adopted the useful institution of synods . . . and the Catho- 
 lic Church soon assumed the form and acquired the strength of a great 
 federative republic." — Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Em- 
 pire," chap. XV. 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF THE MINISTRY 133 
 
 If this be a true account of the evolution of the organiza- 
 tion of the church, the question naturally arises: ''Why 
 should the bishops have been called the successors of the 
 apostles ?'' They are the "successors of the apostles/' 
 but not of the Twelve! The Twelve, as we have seen, 
 were chosen for a particular purpose and could in the na- 
 ture of things have no "successors." But the "apostles" 
 of whom Paul speaks and of whom he was one were the 
 organizers and overseers of the churches which they 
 founded. When, then, in the new or more developed or- 
 ganization overseers were appointed, they not unnaturally 
 took the title of "apostles." 
 
 By some this will be objected to because it is a "natural" 
 explanation of a divine institution. But they will be only 
 those who feel that the more "natural" a thing is, the less 
 divine it must be. To such the only sacred history can 
 be that of the Jews. The marvellous story of man's pil- 
 grimage cannot have for them the significance that it has 
 for those who, with Paul, believe that God "hath made all 
 nations of men to dwell on the earth, that they might seek 
 after him and find him." But to those who know this, the 
 organization of the church is no less divine because it fol- 
 lowed the path already blazed by the Roman Empire, than 
 is Paul's journey to Rome because he followed the roads 
 already built. 
 
 But now look at it in the other way and call it "super- 
 natural." It is equally true so to do. It was the spirit of 
 God which was guiding the hearts of his faithful people 
 as truly now as in the days when the presence of that spirit 
 had been shown by the power to "speak with tongues." 
 This activity of the spirit is what is called in one of the 
 collects "the Divine Providence." This we believe is what 
 led the church to follow the example of the empire and 
 build an organization which enabled it to minister to the 
 whole body of Christ throughout the world. 
 
 But the Catholic may object: "If this be admitted, how 
 
134 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 can you choose the point in this evolution at which you 
 will pause and say, 'Thus far the spirit of God guided the 
 church, but at that point it was left to itself V And if 
 you do not do that, how can it be maintained that the 
 papacy is not as truly the gift of the spirit as is the presby- 
 tery or the episcopate?" I do not believe that any such 
 position is tenable. I believe that the papacy is as truly 
 divine as is episcopacy or presbytery. But as the "gift" 
 of tongues has ceased, having done its work, so the "gift" 
 of the papacy may cease without loss to the church. 
 
 With this in mind we can see what the real objection 
 to the papacy is, and how essential to the welfare of the 
 church the rebellion against its tyranny became. As long 
 as the Holy Roman Empire was thought to be the final 
 form of human society — as Dante thought it to be — the 
 papacy was accepted as a divine institution.* But every 
 organization has a tendency to become autocratic, and 
 fatal as this is to political liberty, it is still more fatal to 
 spiritual liberty. When it was found that that which once 
 had been the servant of the spirit was now the enemy of 
 the saints, the great revolution came. Because the organi- 
 zation had become, to use modern terms, "full of graft," 
 the "independents," in revolting against the "machine," 
 took advantage of their liberty to reorganize the church 
 in the way that they believed would better serve the pur- 
 pose of God in their day than the old organization could 
 do. 
 
 There are many angles from which the Reformation 
 may be viewed. It may be thought of as a religious — 
 that is, ecclesiastical, theological, or moral reformation; 
 to others it is interesting as an economic or social develop- 
 ment; or, finally, it may be treated as the political dis- 
 
 * But, on the other hand, It is to be remembered that from the days 
 of the Franciscans to Wycliff there were continual protests against the 
 papacy, many of them identifying it with the anti-Christ of St. John 
 the Divine. See "Studies in the Apocalypse," R. H. Charles. 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF THE MINISTRY 135 
 
 solution of the Holy Roman Empire. There is much to 
 be said for each of these ways of writing history. But he 
 who fails to see that it was primarily the seeking of a thirsty 
 soul for the living God, fails to enter into the secret of the 
 human spirit. That it was a political movement no stu- 
 dent of the time would deny. But the political results 
 were by-products of the religious emancipation. The word 
 "Protestant" was, of course, primarily a political term. 
 It was the expression of the "State rights" theory of gov- 
 ernment, a protest against the centralizing power of the 
 empire. It was the first step in the "nationalism" which 
 was the necessary successor to the imperial rule. The 
 German reformers believed that there could be no religious 
 liberty which was not guarded by the state, and as the 
 imperial state was bound up with the papacy they ut- 
 tered their political protest. When that step had been 
 taken and the followers of the Reformed religion were 
 protected, the establishment of national churches was the 
 next logical step. 
 
 Each of the churches of the Reformation reverted to 
 one of the forms of that early ministry of which Paul had 
 spoken in the Epistle to the Ephesians. The Lutheran 
 Church exalted the "pastor." The Zwinglian churches 
 chose the "teacher" as their model minister. But the 
 English Church said: "We will retain the * apostle' or 
 bishop or overseer." Which of them was right? They 
 were all right! Each had the same right to reorganize 
 the church as they had to reorganize the state. This can 
 be denied only by those who are obsessed with the belief 
 that there can be but one form of church government which 
 was ordained by Christ himself. The churches reverted 
 to the ministry of gifts which had preceded the ministry 
 of organization, and each had an undoubted right to be 
 ministered to by that one which seemed best fitted to edify 
 the body of Christ in the community in which they dwelt. 
 This was the judgment of all the reformers at the begin- 
 
136 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 ning. None of the Reformed churches questioned the valid- 
 ity of the ministry of any other until a later date when 
 controversy had succeeded to co-operation. 
 
 That this was the feeling of the leaders of the English 
 Reformation every student of the period knows. The 
 English Church retained the historic ministry that it had 
 received from the early days of Christianity, but never 
 indicated that it felt that in so doing it had the only minis- 
 try approved by Christ. It admitted to its pulpits and 
 altars men who had only Lutheran, Zwinglian, or Cal- 
 vinistic ordination. For a hundred years after the separa- 
 tion from Rome there were ministers in the English Church, 
 rectors, deans, and teachers of theology who were without 
 Episcopal ordination. Even so late as the time of the Com- 
 monwealth, when the Calvinists had set up their claim to 
 an exclusive ministry, such a high churchman as Bishop 
 Cosin advised the English refugees in Paris to receive the 
 communion at the hands of the Huguenot pastors. 
 
 To those who do not look below the surface, this diver- 
 sity of ministration seems to have been the disruption of 
 the unity of the church. Yet, as a matter of fact, the spir- 
 itual unity of the churches had never been closer. There 
 were political and theological disputes among the different 
 churches, but the essential value of each was recognized, 
 and the English Church held communion with the sister 
 churches of Frankfort and Zurich and Geneva as it does 
 to-day with the Episcopal churches of the colonies and 
 of America. It was not until the restoration of Charles II 
 that Episcopal ordination was required as necessary for 
 ministering in the churches of England. 
 
 The English Church, then, retained the "apostolic" 
 ministry, but recognized the "pastoral" and the "teach- 
 ing" as of equal validity. 
 
 This, as I say, is familiar to students of the Reformation, 
 but it ought to be more familiar than it is to those who 
 call themselves "good churchmen," and who yet have 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF THE MINISTRY 137 
 
 never taken the trouble to read the Thirty-nine Articles, 
 in which the opinion of the English reformers is set forth. 
 If we turn to the article which defines the church, we shall 
 not find one word as to the necessity of the episcopate. 
 **The visible church of Christ is a congregation of faithful 
 men, in which the pure word of God is preached, and the 
 sacraments be duly administered according to Christ's 
 ordinance, in the things that of necessity are requisite to 
 the same." * 
 
 The same liberal spirit breathes through the article 
 which deals with the ministry. "It is not lawful for any 
 man to take unto him the office of public preaching, or 
 ministering the sacraments in the congregation, before he 
 be lawfully called, and sent to execute the same. And 
 those we ought to judge lawfully called and sent, which 
 be chosen and called to this work by men who have public 
 authority given unto them in the congregation, to call 
 and send ministers into the Lord's vineyards." f 
 
 On this, as has been said, the English Church rested 
 until the restoration of Charles II, acknowledging that 
 Lutheran, Zwinglian, and Huguenot ministers had all been 
 "lawfully called and sent, ... by men who (had) public 
 authority given unto them in the Congregation." Then 
 there was a change of policy, which changed the Church 
 of England into a church of Episcopalians. This is ex- 
 pressed in the Preface to the Ordinal.t "It is evident unto 
 all men diligently reading Holy Scripture and ancient au- 
 thors, that from the apostles' time there have been these 
 orders of ministers in Christ's Church — bishops, priests, 
 and deacons. Which offices were evermore held in such 
 reverent estimation, that no man might presmne to execute 
 any of them, except he were first called, tried, and 
 examined, and known to have such qualities as are requisite 
 for the same; and also by public prayer, with the imposi- 
 
 ♦ Article XIX. f Article XXIII. 
 
 X Book of Common Prayer, p. 509. 
 
138 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 tion of hands, were approved and admitted thereunto by 
 lawful authority. And, therefore, to the intent that these 
 orders may be continued, and reverently used and esteemed 
 in this churchy no man shall be accounted or taken to be a 
 lawful bishop, priest, or deacon in this church, or suffered 
 to execute any of the said functions, except he be called, 
 tried, and examined, and admitted thereto, according to 
 the form hereafter following, or hath had Episcopal con- 
 secration or ordination.'' (Italics mine.) 
 
 It is in the last line that the change of polity is expressed. 
 Till this time, as has been said, men had been counted 
 lawful ministers ''in this church" who had not received 
 "Episcopal consecration or ordination." 
 
 It would take more space than can be given here to show 
 how this change was brought about. But two things may 
 be noted: first, this was the result of the inevitable reac- 
 tion from the tyranny of the Commonwealth, under which 
 those who had received Episcopal ordination were perse- 
 cuted and the Prayer-Book suppressed. But there was a 
 deeper cause than this. But before considering that, it 
 might be well for us to pause a moment and note, that 
 even in this Preface there is not found one word which 
 claims for the Episcopal ministry more than any student 
 of history would be willing to grant. It is true that "from 
 the apostles' time" — an indefinite period, but very ancient 
 — the ministers afterward enumerated had been found in 
 the church and, therefore, should be highly esteemed. Sec- 
 ond, while it is asserted that hereafter "in this church" 
 none who have not received Episcopal ordination shall be 
 permitted to minister, there is no hint that the ministers 
 of other churches were not lawfully called to minister in 
 those churches or that their ministry was less " valid" 
 than the Episcopal. This careful statement was the more 
 remarkable when it is remembered that it was made at 
 the end of a long controversy. 
 
 Attention has been called to the fact that at the Ref- 
 
TtlE EVOLUTION OF THE MINISTRY 139 
 
 ormation the different churches reverted to that primi- 
 tive ministry of which St. Paul speaks in his letter to the 
 Ephesians. Btit there is one great church of which no 
 mention has yet been made. The church of Geneva did 
 not revert to the ministry of "gifts," but to the earliest 
 form of the ministry of officials. 
 
 Calvin, who, though he was a layman, had taken pre- 
 liminary orders in the Roman Church, and had been trained 
 at the Sorbonne — the school in which the spirit of the Mid- 
 dle Ages had been kept alive — ^went to Geneva to estab- 
 lish his model church in the mediaeval spirit. He had a 
 theory and he turned to the New Testament, not to learn 
 but to find arguments and authorities to buttress his 
 theory. Of course he found them. He was convinced 
 that the only ministry which had the approval of the Apos- 
 toUc Church was that of presbyters. His conclusion was 
 that he who had not the Presbyterian ministry had not 
 that which was approved by the Scriptures, which all the 
 reformers were agreed was to be the rule by which the 
 church was to be tried. 
 
 The men of Puritan tendencies who went to Geneva 
 from England during the reign of Mary fell in love with 
 Calvin's logic and returned to England with Calvin's "high 
 church" doctrine of the ministry. It was the Presbyterian 
 who introduced the dogma of "apostolic succession" into 
 the controversies of the English Church, and the result 
 has been most disastrous. These Puritans, as they were 
 called, were not satisfied with the Elizabethan settlement, 
 and wished to make a revolution which would change the 
 polity of the English Church from Episcopal to Presby- 
 terian, which, at the same time, would have changed it 
 from a comprehensive to a sectarian church. 
 
 That the English Church was saved from this calamity 
 is due in no small measure to the labors of one of the great- 
 est men the English race has produced: Richard Hooker 
 — to be known as long as the English Church shall last as 
 
I40 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 the "judicious" Hooker. What Marshall did for the Amer- 
 ican nation, Hooker did for the English Church. His great 
 work on "ecclesiastical polity" is a classic which every 
 churchman should know. It has the same value as an 
 interpretation of his time as has "The Federalist" in our 
 own history. 
 
 Calvin represented the mediaeval mind; Hooker repre- 
 sented the scientific mind as truly as did his better-known 
 contemporary, Bacon. 
 
 The substance of Hooker's great argument is this: "We 
 should not go to the New Testament to find proof of what 
 we have already determined to be true; we should go to 
 it in a teachable spirit and learn what are the facts. The 
 fact is this: that in the New Testament there is no form 
 of church government so clearly set forth that it is to be 
 followed in all times and places. Therefore, the churches 
 are at liberty to choose such form of government as seems 
 best. The English Church chose to retain the Episcopal, 
 and in so doing did nothing contrary to * God's word writ- 
 ten,' but, on the contrary, followed the ancient custom of 
 the church for fifteen hundred years, and has what is prob- 
 ably the best ministry that could be found." This, he 
 goes on to say, does not imply that those who have another 
 form are without a valid ministry — far from it — though 
 he does believe that while episcopacy is not of the "esjg," 
 it is of the ^'bene esse^^ of the church. 
 
 How wise and restrained, how filled with the English 
 spirit, which is suspicious of "logic" and the following of 
 a premise a outrance in a way so dear to the French mind, 
 and, therefore, to the Frenchman Calvin! Hooker is as 
 utilitarian as Paley and as pragmatic as the latest psy- 
 chologist, and, therefore, his book is more modem than 
 some written yesterday. This argument, I venture to say, 
 has now the approval of most students of repute. So that 
 the way is open, as it has not been for centuries, for the 
 Reformed churches to reconsider their positions. But the 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF THE MINISTRY 141 
 
 English and Episcopal churches are still in the trammels 
 of mediae valism, because they forsook the scientific methods 
 of their greatest teacher, and took up with the revived 
 mediaevalism of Newman and the Oxford leaders of the 
 early- Victorian era. As a result, there are many mem- 
 bers of these churches who believe, and alas ! teach, that 
 the "apostolic succession" is part of the doctrine of the 
 church of Hooker ! 
 
 If it then be true that the different ministries are of equal 
 "validity," the question may seem to be: "Why should 
 any church, and above all the Episcopal Church, lay such 
 stress upon the perpetuation of one of them ? Have not 
 each of them shown that it is efficient, and is not that what 
 the apostle said was the purpose of the spirit in giving these 
 ' gifts ' of the ministry ? Were they not all for the ' upbuild- 
 ing of the body of Christ' ? " I think this is the way in 
 which the question should be approached. It is the true 
 American way of dealing with the problems of history. 
 Does something which has had value in the past "work" 
 to-day? But we must consider the morrow. Will these 
 various ministries be as effective in the future as they un- 
 doubtedly have been in the past ? I doubt it. And one 
 reason which leads me to doubt it is that they have already 
 largely been merged in another ministry revived in the 
 Reformation period, of which so far no mention has been 
 made. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE FUTURE MINISTRY 
 
 As the English Church sought to perpetuate the "apos- 
 tolic" ministry, and the Lutheran the "pastoral," and 
 the Zwinglian the "teaching," and Calvin the first official, 
 the "Presbyterian," so the Anabaptists revived the "pro- 
 phetic." The "prophets" of Zwickau were far removed 
 from the preachers Paul had in mind, but nevertheless 
 they were preachers who were believed to be filled with the 
 spirit. They tended indeed to take the form of Old Testa- 
 ment prophets rather than of New Testament preachers, 
 and seemed to be more interested in social reorganization 
 than in the cultivation of "love, joy, and peace." But this 
 was a temporary form of the movement. When it passed 
 from Germany to England it became more sober and in- 
 telligent. It did indeed sometimes "revert to type" as, 
 for instance, in the extravagances of the Latter-day Saints 
 in the time of the Commonwealth, and met the scorn of 
 the pragmatic Cromwell, but it profoundly affected the 
 religious life of England both in the Baptist and Inde- 
 pendent or Congregational churches. But it was not until 
 it passed over to America that the Anabaptist movement 
 showed the vitality which its long-forgotten truth en- 
 shrined. It is not too much to say that the "prophetic" 
 ministry revived by the Anabaptist movement has 
 triumphed in America. One proof of this — and many more 
 could be produced — is found in the fact that in more than 
 one of the prominent Presbyterian churches the Presby- 
 terian ministry has given place to the Congregational and 
 Baptist without either protest or loss in spiritual life. 
 
 142 
 
THE FUTURE MINISTRY 143 
 
 These men are true prophets, and it is a shame that the 
 Episcopal Church compels its children who wish to hear 
 their message to leave their own churches for that pur- 
 pose. Its own pulpits should be open to them. But while 
 we gladly acknowledge the glory of this ministry, and be- 
 lieve it to be an essential element in the edification of the 
 church, we do not believe that it is well adapted to the 
 work which is opening up before the Reformed churches 
 in a republic as great in extent and population as that of 
 the Roman Empire. We believe that it would be a loss 
 to the religious life of the republic to have the "apostolic" 
 ministry absorbed, as the "pastoral'' and Presbyterian 
 ministry are apparently being absorbed in the "prophetic." 
 We gladly acknowledge the beauty and power of the pro- 
 phetic ministry, but we must also recognize its limitations, 
 unsupplemented and unregulated by the apostolic. 
 
 For I believe that the task before the churches of this 
 land to-day is not unlike that which the early church was 
 called upon to meet in the conversion of the Roman Em- 
 pire. As long as the church confined its ministrations to 
 the great centres — ^like Antioch and Ephesus — the pro- 
 phetic ministry was the leading and more important one. 
 Thus, we read in the Acts that "there were in the church 
 at Antioch certain prophets and teachers"; and that "as 
 they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost 
 said, separate me Barnabas [one of the prophets] and 
 Saul for the work whereunto I have called them." This 
 new work was not prophetic but apostolic. 
 
 Now look at the life of the churches in this land. We 
 find that most of the great prophets are in the large cities. 
 It cannot be otherwise. The small town or village does 
 not offer the field for their activity. What then is the con- 
 dition of the small town which cannot enjoy the prophetic 
 ministry? Every minister is supposed to be a prophet or 
 preacher, and is judged by that. His people now journey 
 to the great cities where the preachers speak to large crowds 
 
144 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 every Sunday, and his own little church seems in compari- 
 son a paltry thing. We need not repeat here what has 
 already been said of the condition of the Protestant 
 churches in the small towns * Can a prophet do his best 
 work in such an atmosphere ? The Roman Catholic Church 
 is filled to the doors not once nor twice only each Sun- 
 day. I recognize that there are motives which lead Roman 
 Catholics to church which we neither can nor wish to em- 
 ploy; but, when all is said, there must be some reason why 
 Christian people should flock to one kind of service and 
 seek to escape from the other. May not one reason be 
 found in the fact that we are attempting to do work with 
 tools which are not fitted for the purpose ? I am inclined to 
 think that this may be in part the cause of the lamentable 
 state of many of the country churches. The minister is sup- 
 posed to be a preacher and he is not. He might be some- 
 where else, but he cannot be there. No minister who recog- 
 nizes the failures of his own ministry would willingly point 
 out the failures of another. But as I have listened to some 
 of these pathetic efforts to "prophesy," when I have seen 
 the restlessness of the children, the indifference of the young 
 — ^not many of them present indeed — and the patience of 
 the old, whose experience of life has been so much richer 
 than that of the preacher, I have wondered why any one 
 goes to church ! I may have been unfortunate, but I regret 
 to say that the chief burden of the sermons to which I have 
 listened has been the evils of intemperance or the use of 
 tobacco; both of them, no doubt, subjects which should 
 be judiciously touched on from time to time, but a meagre 
 fare for the hungry sheep ! 
 
 The "prophet" plays a subordinate part in the Catholic 
 Church. Only an occasional sermon is preached, yet, in 
 their own way, there is brought to the worshippers the 
 conviction that the living God is among them to judge, 
 to comfort, and to bless. f Moreover, the priest is not 
 
 * See above, Chapter IV. f See below, Chapter XV. 
 
THE FUTURE MINISTRY 145 
 
 simply an "official" ministering at the altar; he is also 
 a pastor dealing with the people through the confessional. 
 In spite of the dreadful abuse of the confessional in the 
 Roman Catholic Church, not a few earnest Protestants 
 are beginning to recognize that nothing is more needed 
 for the welfare of Protestant churches than a revival of 
 the "pastoral" ministry — the bringing of the minister 
 into such personal touch with the individual as will enable 
 him to counsel and comfort individual troubled souls. If 
 the prophet be a prophet, indeed, he can make me feel, 
 more than I have ever felt in the cathedrals of Italy or 
 France or Spain, the presence of God. But I do not feel 
 it in the average American country church, and I have no 
 reason to believe any one else does. 
 
 "But," it may now well be said, "has the Episcopal 
 ministry better fruit to show in the country towns ? " Be- 
 fore I answer that, I should like to say that I do not think 
 that in any of the great cities of the land the pulpit of the 
 Episcopal Church is equal in spiritual power to the pulpit 
 of other churches. But in the country I think the 
 Episcopal Church does better work. And the reason is 
 that in the country it is not so dependent upon "prophecy." 
 The sermons in the small churches may not be great, but 
 I believe they are better than in the average church of 
 other names; first, because they are shorter, and, secondly, 
 because as a rule they are more reverent in tone. The 
 little ones have early learned to take part in the service 
 and so do not feel the tension of "sitting still," and the 
 indifferent are interested and, let us hope, instructed by 
 the reading of the Bible, which fills a larger space than in 
 any other form of worship. "Well," it may be said, "this 
 is a defense of the liturgy, but has no bearing on the minis- 
 try." It has this bearing, that the ministry of the Episco- 
 pal Church, being not exclusively a preaching ministry, is 
 not so limited in its appeal. But indeed the service can- 
 not be separated from the ministry. It is all part of a 
 
146 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 whole, and tends to keep alive a consciousness of associa- 
 tion with something larger than the local congregation. 
 It is the bishop, the representative in our modern life of 
 the apostolic ministry for which Barnabas and Saul were 
 " separated "; it is the bishop who carries to every little vil- 
 lage in the land the greetings not only of the American 
 church, of which the parish is a part; but also the remem- 
 brance of that larger church which from the times of the 
 apostles has been ministered to by bishops, priests, and 
 deacons. Every child is reminded at his confirmation 
 that what is done when he is confirmed is in imitation of 
 an apostolic custom. Every communicant is reminded 
 that he is a member not alone of the local church but of a 
 church which, though relatively small in numbers, is grow- 
 ing and increasing in influence, and his life is thereby en- 
 larged. The ministry of the prophet is essentially a local 
 ministry, and needs to be supplemented by the apostolic 
 — universal — organizing ministry. 
 
 It may be said that the foregoing is scarcely a true pic- 
 ture of the average country church. I would not assert 
 that it is true of the average church, but I think it is fair 
 to say that it is true of great numbers of the Protestant 
 churches. "WeU, even so,'' it may be answered, ^'the 
 country church is not so spiritually isolated as you seem to 
 think. It does not have the oversight of a chief pastor — 
 which the democratic spirit of our people does not greatly 
 care for — ^but it has its own bond of union with the larger 
 church in the periodic revivals which quicken the con- 
 science of the local church." That they so do I should be 
 the last to deny. But, on the other hand, does the revival- 
 ist deepen the sense of the universality of the church, or 
 does he intensify the sense of individual responsibility ? I 
 do not question the value of so doing, I only ask if it can 
 be said that the revivahst does the same work as does the 
 bishop. Another question arises here: In the early history 
 of the country, when the sense of individual initiative and 
 
THE FUTURE MINISTRY 147 
 
 the separatist sentiment — especially in the West and in the 
 South, where the revivals were most successful — were 
 strong, the appeal exclusively to the individual was more 
 congenial than it is to-day, when the sense of the unity of 
 the nation is greater and the "social conscience" is being 
 quickened as it has not been for ages, has not the vocation 
 of the revivalist largely ceased ? As a sense of the impor- 
 tance of education has deepened, is there not need of some 
 ministry which will impress upon the young that the reli- 
 gious life is a continual growth in grace rather than a sud- 
 den conversion, which may soon lose its power ? It is upon 
 this that the ministry of the bishop lays stress. Every 
 child confirmed is admitted to the communion — that is, to 
 a lifelong education in truth and righteousness. May not 
 the question then be fairly asked whether a ministry which 
 is in harmony with the two great aims of the coimtry — 
 education and nationality — ^be worthy of the serious con- 
 sideration of those who heretofore have thought of it only 
 as a sign of an exclusive claim to a valid ministry ? This 
 I believe is the feeling of many serious men who are as far 
 as possible from the heresy of the fiction of the "apostolic" 
 succession. 
 
 I am aware that this may be thought an appeal to senti- 
 ment and lacking in that practical value which the age 
 demands. This may be, but it ought not to be forgotten 
 that we are a people more filled with sentiment — ^which we 
 seek to hide under a sort of irony — than any people in the 
 world. But the Episcopal ministry can also be justified on 
 the ground of utility. 
 
 No church which is truly comprehensive can dispense 
 with the services of an arbitrator. If there is to be wide 
 difference of opinion among the clergy, there must be some 
 one to whom may be referred questions which trouble the 
 conscience of brethren of the clergy or of the congregation. 
 Such difficulties arise in every church. In the non-Episco- 
 cal churches those who are great preachers are allowed 
 
148 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 great liberty because the congregation would not lose their 
 services. But in the country church, where the position of 
 the minister is often dependent upon the approval of some 
 influential — which often means rich — ^member of the con- 
 gregation, the welfare of the minister and of his family 
 may depend upon the whim of some ignorant man or 
 prejudiced woman. No system can entirely guard against 
 such tyranny. But it is certainly an advantage to the 
 minister to have an arbiter whose judgment, because of his 
 office, carries weight with the laity. Such an one is the 
 bishop. To him every minister has the right to refer any 
 brother clergyman who is offended by his utterances or 
 any parishioner who is of the opinion that his teaching is 
 not sound. How many a layman, who would be happy if 
 he could browbeat his minister if the matter could be kept 
 between themselves, or at most would be known only to 
 the local church which he largely supports, will hesitate to 
 take the matter to the bishop and have the dispute settled 
 by authority. The minister, at his ordination, promises 
 obedience to the godly admonition of his bishop. This 
 does not mean that any whim of the bishop is of divine 
 origin and is to be obeyed. It means that if the judgment 
 of the bishop can be shown to be in accordance with the 
 will of God — and of that the individual minister is the 
 judge — it will be followed. But even if, in the judgment 
 of the individual, the coimsel of the bishop though well- 
 meaning is not conclusive, he is at Hberty to refuse to fol- 
 low it, and has his appeal to a court of his brethren. How 
 seldom that happens shows how wisely the bishops as a 
 rule exercise their prerogative. They too are constitutional 
 officers, and must give an account of their work to the 
 laity as weU as to the clergy. But even if the minister be 
 convinced that the judgment of his bishop is not the best, 
 unless the question be one of morals, he will be likely to 
 yield his own judgment to that of the bishop for the sake 
 of peace. And this he can do without loss of dignity or 
 
THE FUTURE MINISTRY 149 
 
 the danger of the imputation of unworthy motives because 
 of the universal respect for the office of the bishop. 
 
 But the presumption is that it will be a "godly judg- 
 ment," first, because as a rule the bishops are mostly 
 chosen because they have shown themselves men of affairs, 
 i. e., men of judgment; and, secondly, because, being re- 
 moved from the local atmosphere, they are better able to 
 take an impartial view of the question in controversy. 
 This is why there is seldom a public scandal in the Epis- 
 copal Church. That is why the clergy are protected from 
 the tyranny of the laity and the congregation saved from 
 the idiosyncrasies of the minister. The system is not 
 ideal, but, Hke the Constitution, it works. There are fool- 
 ish bishops, as there are conceited presbyters and bump- 
 tious deacons; there are a few, no doubt, who *' presume to 
 wear an undeserved dignity . . .," who 
 
 "Do a wilful stillness entertain 
 With purpose to be dressed in an opinion, 
 Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit; 
 As who should say, 'I am Sir Oracle, 
 And when I ope my lips let no dog bark,' " 
 
 But these are the exceptions. Taken as a whole, the 
 bishops of the Episcopal Church are as fine a body of men 
 as the country produces. They are unquestionably supe- 
 rior in character and wisdom to the Senate, and compare 
 favorably with the federal judges of the country. To lose 
 this ministry out of our American life might not be a great 
 loss in the cities, but it would be a distinct loss to the 
 country at large. 
 
 What is the conclusion of the whole matter ? It is this: 
 No one of the historic ministries should be discarded; no 
 one of them should set up a claim to be the exclusive chan- 
 nel of God*s grace; each has its place and work in our 
 national life; but I have laid emphasis upon the value of 
 the episcopate because I believe if its utility and senti- 
 
ISO THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 mental value were emphasized, it would make an appeal to 
 many who are now deterred from considering its value be- 
 cause of the unwarranted and exclusive claims which have 
 been made for it. If the Episcopal Church, in the spirit 
 of the great teachers of the English Church, were to say, 
 *'The ministry of pastors and prophets and elders is as 
 truly of divine origin as the ministry of apostles," there 
 would be a disposition to consider the wise words of the 
 Prayer-Book: "It is evident to all men diligently reading 
 Holy Scripture and ancient authors that, from the apos- 
 tles' time, there have been these three orders of ministers 
 in Christ's church — bishops, priests, and deacons, and 
 therefore they ought to be reverently esteemed"; and we 
 in turn were to say: "It is evident to aU men diligently 
 seeing the signs of the times, that other ministries also 
 have been the ministers of Christ, and by them the body 
 of Christ has been and is still being edified"; there would 
 result such a unity of spirit as to open the way for a freer 
 co-operation than is now possible, and, in time, a unifica- 
 tion of the forces of the church in such a way that without 
 asking for the reordination of those who have shown them- 
 selves the ministers of Christ, the episcopate could obtain 
 such a wide-spread trial as would result in the peace and 
 liberty of the church such as is not otherwise possible. 
 Under the leadership of bishops there might be an evan- 
 gelization and edification of the religious life of the coun- 
 try churches such as has not been known for centuries, and 
 such an expansion of missionary spirit as would lead to the 
 conversion of the world. 
 
 If some one is inclined to ask if one of the other forms 
 of church leadership would not lead to the same result, 
 we need not enter again into the controversies of the past. 
 I am aware that these considerations will have no influence 
 with men who have decided that whatever may be the 
 practical advantages of the episcopate as compared with 
 the presbytery or any other form of church government, 
 
THE FUTURE MINISTRY 151 
 
 the question should not be approached in this utilitarian 
 spirit. Christ himself ordained the ministry which the 
 church must perpetuate, whether that ministry is suc- 
 cessful or not. But this does rot show that the argument 
 is weak; it only shows that some men are not open to con- 
 viction. They are not open to conviction, not because 
 they are lacking in intelligence or knowledge, but for a 
 deeper spiritual reason of which we shall speak later.* 
 They value the episcopate, not for its practical utility, but 
 for its spiritual necessity. As the value of the drone in 
 the hive is to be judged not by the amount of work which 
 it accomplishes but by its power of fertilizing the queen 
 bee, so these men seem to think that the value of the epis- 
 copate is to be estimated by its power of fertilizing the 
 church so as to bring forth priests to celebrate a valid sacra- 
 ment. The Protestant believes in the virgin birth of the 
 ministry; the Catholic insists that there must be an earthly 
 father. Therefore, tables of genealogy seem to him to be 
 an essential part of the church's gospel. 
 
 The problem before the churches in America is in many 
 ways the same as that which confronted the early Chris- 
 tian church. As long as the question was one which con- 
 cerned the particular locality, one of the ministries men- 
 tioned by Paul seemed as well fitted as another to do the 
 work, but when the problem was to Christianize an empire, 
 then the Episcopal form was found essential. I believe it 
 is the same to-day. All the churches in America are essen- 
 tially local, not to say still colonial, churches, and there is 
 no conception of a national church — that is, no conception 
 of a united body which is able to bring the spirit of God 
 to bear upon our political, economic, educational, and 
 social life. Every prophet is doing what he can in the local- 
 ity in which he finds himself, but nothing less than the 
 united action of the religious life of America will suffice 
 for the work of regenerating America. No congregational 
 * See below, Chapter XV. 
 
152 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 form of government can in these days serve the need of 
 the nation, any more than the town meeting, valuable as 
 it is in the village, can function in a great city, and still 
 less in a State or throughout the country at large. 
 
 If there were in the churches to-day the same spirit of 
 wisdom that inspired our fathers in the days when the 
 nation was called upon to pass from a colonial to a national 
 form of government, a way would be found to substitute 
 for our provincialism a national religious life. The first 
 duty of the Episcopal Church, in this crisis of the church 
 and nation, is to cease its foolish talk about its ministry 
 having an exclusive privilege ordained by Christ himself, 
 while all the others are of man's invention and cannot 
 give the gift of the Holy Ghost. We need to learn what 
 it is our church has stood for from the time of the Reforma- 
 tion till the Oxford movement. Hooker and all the great 
 teachers of the English Church in the seventeenth and 
 eighteenth centuries knew the value of the ministry of 
 which they were justly proud, but few of them made the 
 mistake which the men who followed Newman — as far as 
 they dared follow him — ^made of taking the theory of Cal- 
 vin, turning it upside down, putting a mitre on the head 
 of the "presiding elder," and saying: ''This and this only 
 was ordained by Christ." 
 
 I believe that if the true teaching of the English Church 
 would be first learned by our own people and then made 
 known to others, there would be found not a few of our 
 brethren of other churches who would say: "The day has 
 come when the prophetic ministry of this country needs 
 to be supplemented by the apostolic ministry." If that 
 could be done, then we might look forward to the day — 
 perhaps still far distant — when the work which our fathers 
 began, when some of the same men who drew the Con- 
 stitution of the United States drew the constitution of the 
 Episcopal Church, would be crowned by such co-opera- 
 tion of the churches as would make us a religious nation 
 
THE FUTURE MINISTRY 153 
 
 instead of a nation with many religious clubs. The men 
 who framed the tabernacle of the Episcopal Church had a 
 vision of a national church, and the day is drawing near 
 when we feel that it is no longer a dream but a necessity. 
 
 The Episcopal Church again follows the synthetic 
 method. It seeks to escape from provincialism by its form 
 of government which emphasizes the universality of the 
 church, but on the other hand it is not indifferent either 
 to the country of which it forms a part nor to the de- 
 mocracy in which it believes. It does not balk at the 
 papacy because it is unwilling to take the last step in an 
 evolution which it recognizes; it objects to the papacy 
 because, though it admits that it was the last step in 
 the evolution of the historic ministry, it knows also that 
 the papacy so changed its character that it became not 
 the servant but the tyrant of the church. If it were only 
 a question of consistency which is involved, one might be 
 willing to admit that if the time were to come when the 
 nations of the world would unite in an association which 
 would not destroy the nations forming part of it, it might 
 then be a practical question whether it would not be a 
 feasible and practical thing to have a religious president 
 of the churches, chosen not by a majority of Italian cardi- 
 nals, but by some body which represented the suffrage of 
 the universal church. It is not the theory of the papacy 
 which is objected to; it is its practical working, which 
 has always been fatal to democracy unless restrained by 
 a large Protestant community. 
 
 The church which is to serve America must be an Amer- 
 ican church. Neither Italian nor English nor Scotch nor 
 Dutch nor German nor Irish. No church at present exist- 
 ing in these United States is fitted to minister to the life 
 of the whole nation. Each has its own contribution to 
 make, and that of the Episcopal Church is not the least. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 WORSHIP 
 
 In the two preceding chapters we have considered the 
 ministry, which in ecclesiastical language is technically 
 known as the "discipline'' of the church. An effort was 
 made to show, not that the ministry of the Episcopal 
 Church is the only valid ministry, or that others are with- 
 out advantages of their own, but rather to point out why, 
 as it seems to some of us, it is a ministry specially adapted 
 to the needs of the present, since it was evolved in a time 
 not unlike our own so far as the problem of the church is 
 concerned. 
 
 In the same spirit, I now venture to set forth some of 
 the reasons which lead Episcopalians to lay emphasis on 
 the value of the Book of Common Prayer. 
 
 The first is this: they have learned by experience that 
 the surest bond of union is neither doctrine nor discipline, 
 but worship. They do not believe that their method of 
 worship is the only one acceptable to our Heavenly Father, 
 but they do know that it has been helpful to them, and 
 therefore wish that it should be given careful consideration 
 in any worship which the churches might be inclined to 
 recommend as a bond of union. 
 
 John tells us that, in his vision, he was permitted to be- 
 hold the heavenly worship. The "four beasts," which 
 represent the powers of creation, and the "four and twenty 
 elders," the representatives of humanity, join in the praise 
 of the Creator, to whom at the beginning, "the morning 
 stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for 
 joy." But this praise of the Creator is now supplemented 
 by the adoration of the Lamb who "has redeemed them 
 out of every kingdom and nation and tribe, and made them 
 
 154 
 
\ WORSHIP 1 55 
 
 kings, and priests unto God." Then, we read, an angel 
 brought forth the "golden censor, full of incense, which 
 are the prayers of saints." 
 
 What church can claim to have reproduced that heav- 
 enly worship, the characteristics of which are eternal awe 
 and everlasting thankfulness? None can claim to have 
 made its spiritual tabernacle according to the pattern 
 shown in the Mount. Yet may not the Episcopalian mod- 
 estly say that his fathers, in bequeathing the Hturgy which 
 they had received from men of old, have left to his church 
 a jewel which they intended it to keep, not for its own 
 ornament alone, but as an heirloom for the children yet 
 unborn ? That is why they are not eager to enter into a 
 ''religious trust" without the assurance that that which 
 has a history far more wonderful than those who are not 
 familiar with it would be inclined to suppose, will be given 
 the consideration it deserves. Many beheve that even 
 those who are convinced, as many devout men are, that 
 no liturgy can be the final expression of the growing devo- 
 tion of the church will, if they seriously consider the won- 
 derful history of the Book of Common Prayer, feel that it 
 combines to a great degree those two elements of devotion 
 — awe and thanksgiving — ^which are the essentials of the 
 ideal worship as seen by John the Divine. 
 
 Dr. Huntington used to say that as every man is born 
 either a Platonist or an Aristotelian, so is every man by 
 nature either a liturgist or an extemporanean. There are 
 multitudes of devout people to whom any liturgy is a 
 bondage. They must pray with freedom of spirit, pour- 
 ing out their hearts to God in the simple language of daily 
 life. And because, in their public worship, they cultivate 
 the habit of extemporary prayer, they have a freedom of 
 utterance seldom attained by those who use exclusively a 
 liturgy. In the ideal church room would be found for 
 both the formal and the free. But because the latter is at 
 present more popular than the former, to abandon the less 
 
156 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 well known would be to lose a gift to the church which has 
 been bequeathed by the saints. This surely would be an 
 irreparable loss. But while it must be reluctantly ad- 
 mitted that the exclusive use of a liturgy has been accom- 
 panied by a loss of freedom in prayer such as the non- 
 liturgical brethren enjoy, it is not to be supposed that it is 
 admitted that this is the inevitable result of the use of a 
 liturgy. The wide-spread belief that this must be true is 
 one of the reasons why many are loath to consider the 
 power of the Prayer-Book. Yet President Eliot, no ex- 
 travagant admirer of our liturgy, once told me that he 
 esteemed Phillips Brooks more wonderful in prayer than 
 in preaching. Yet any one who heard him pray must 
 have noted that he usually began with some well-known 
 collect, and, using that as a "taking-off" ground, rose to 
 spiritual heights which few in any church have reached. 
 When Harvard commemorated the sacrifice of her sons in 
 the Civil War, Lowell's "Ode'' was forgotten in the splendor 
 of Brooks's matchless prayer* of resignation and hope, 
 even as the rhetoric of Everett was eclipsed by the sim- 
 ple eloquence of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. It will 
 not do to say that this was an eccentricity of Brooks's 
 genius. Genius can indeed be bound by no forms, but 
 the daily enrichment of the mind by the thoughts of the great, 
 which he learned by heart, made Lincoln the master of 
 speech he was, and the daily communion with the thoughts 
 and language of the saints gave to Brooks the power of 
 prayer. The children of the Episcopal Church should be 
 the most powerful in prayer. That they are not is due 
 not to the use but to the abuse of the liturgy. It is be- 
 cause they do not use it intelligently but mechanically 
 that it becomes deadening instead of vitalizing. It seems 
 to me, then, that the recalling of some of the simplest 
 facts about what may be called in some respects the most 
 
 * For a full account of the efiFect of this prayer, see "The Life and Let- 
 ters of Henry Higginson," by Bliss Perry, pp. 237-238. 
 
WORSHIP 157 
 
 wonderful book in the English language might be help- 
 ful to an understanding of the love that the children of 
 the Anglican communion have ^or it, and perhaps be a 
 means of its introduction to the notice of those who, 
 possibly through prejudice, have never given it serious 
 consideration. 
 
 It was on Whitsunday, June 9, 1549, that there was 
 placed in the hands of the people of England the Prayer- 
 Book, which was more than anything else, except the King 
 James version of the Bible, to affect the religious life of 
 the English-speaking peoples. The first source of its influ- 
 ence was its catholicity. It was compiled from the devo- 
 tional books of the Roman Catholic Church, with which 
 the people were already familiar — the breviary, the mis- 
 sal, the manual, and the pontifical. These services were 
 now combined in one book and used, the first for daily 
 prayer, the second for the communion, the next for special 
 services, and the last for the office of ordination. For the 
 English Church, in its rejection of the papacy, did not 
 wish to cut itself off from spiritual communion with the 
 saints of the Roman Church, therefore many of the prayers 
 are those which had been gathered together by Pope Gela- 
 sius and had been said for centuries in every church. Much 
 that disfigured these books, in the opinion of the reformers, 
 was omitted, but if what was drawn from the Roman 
 books of devotion had been aU the book contained, it 
 could not have been the power that it has been in the life 
 of the church. But, indeed, the books as Cranmer used 
 them were not quite the same as those in use on the Conti- 
 nent. The English Church had for generations been semi- 
 independent of Rome, and had what were called its own 
 "uses." Thus Salisbury — the religious centre of the king- 
 dom of Wessex, which Alfred the Great made the nucleus 
 of his larger kingdom — had its own form. York, the see 
 city of the old Northumbrian kingdom, had its "use,'' and 
 so had Bangor, which was the mother church of those de- 
 
158 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 scendants of the early British Church who had been driven 
 into the mountains of Wales, but never quite exterminated. 
 So not only did the new service-book perpetuate the ancient 
 tradition, it also became the spiritual cement of the king- 
 doms which had at last found their political union under 
 the leadership of the Tudors. But even yet the whole 
 story has not been told. The Church of France had not 
 received the gospel originally from Rome, but from the 
 East, perhaps from the Church of Ephesus. From Asia 
 Minor had come pilgrims to the mouth of the Rhone, and 
 gradually the tradition of the Eastern churches had fol- 
 lowed the stream to Lyons, and then overland to Paris, 
 and so through Normandy had come into England. Thus 
 there came to the new service ancient prayers from the 
 venerable liturgies of the East. Thus the closing collect 
 for morning and evening prayer is called "The Prayer of 
 St. Chrysostom." While it probably was not written by 
 the great preacher of Antioch and Constantinople, it is 
 evidently an Eastern, that is, a Greek, prayer. The peti- 
 tion that God will grant his people "in this world knowl- 
 edge of the truth and in the world to come life everlasting ^' 
 is the spirit of Greece baptized into Christ, for the two 
 things for which the Greeks longed were truth and Ufe. 
 On the other hand, the litany came from the Church of 
 France, where it had first been heard in the days when 
 the plague devastated the south. 
 
 But while the compilers of the new book naturally and 
 wisely turned to the past, they were not unmindful of the 
 spirit which was breathing into the churches of the day in 
 which they lived. The First Book of Edward the Sixth — 
 the one of which we are now speaking — was largely influ- 
 enced by Luther, who in Hturgics was far less hostile to 
 the Roman Church than many of the later reformers. 
 But Cranmer's handiwork is the one which appeals to us 
 more than anything else in the book. Many of the most 
 beautiful collects were his, as for instance that for. the 
 
WORSHIP 159 
 
 second Sunday in Advent, beginning, "Blessed Lord, who 
 hast caused all Holy Scripture to be written for our learn- 
 ing"; so is the collect for Trinity Sunday. Indeed, most 
 of the collects for Trinity season are Reformation prayers. 
 
 The First Book of Edward the Sixth was, as has been 
 said, influenced by Luther, with whom at that time Cran- 
 mer was in sympathy. But the growing influence of the 
 Puritans was not content with a book which differed so 
 little from the Roman books of worship, and so in 1552 
 there appeared the Second Book of Edward the Sixth, in 
 which more radical changes were made. It shows the 
 Zwinglian influence rather than the Lutheran, for by this 
 time Cranmer had begun to understand the teaching of 
 the reformer of Zurich. While this book was temporarily 
 repressed at the accession of Mary, it still remains essen- 
 tially the book that is in our hands to-day. 
 
 After the accession of Elizabeth an attempt was made 
 in 1559 to restore the First Book, but the Puritan influence 
 was too strong for that. On the other hand, the Catholics 
 did succeed in making certain changes and, it is said, al- 
 most persuaded the pope to give his consent to the use 
 of the English book. But this attempt failed because 
 the two parties could not come to an agreement on the 
 subject of the royal supremacy. Elizabeth might have 
 been willing to restore the mass, but the daughter of Henry 
 VIII had no intention of relinquishing any privilege the 
 crown had once gained. Nor did the nobles, even though 
 they were not particularly religious men, intend to do any- 
 thing which might weaken the new spirit of Nationalism. 
 
 In 1604 King James convened the Hampton Court 
 Conference, and attempted to bridge the ever-widening 
 breach between the two parties. But it came to naught. 
 The uncompromising Puritans were determined to rule 
 or ruin — and they did each in turn ! * 
 
 * Those who sympathize with the Puritans will be inclined to lay 
 the blame upon the bishops. Thus Gardiner ("History of England," 
 vol. I, p. 158) says: "Men whose fame for learning and piety was un- 
 
i6o THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 In 1637 the Catholic party was triumphant, and Arch- 
 bishop Laud imagined that there was nothing which he 
 with the approval of his royal master might not accom- 
 plish. But, finding he could not have his will in England, 
 he had the happy thought to impose the new book which 
 he had revised upon — of all people in the world — the 
 Scotch ! But the sons and daughters of the men who had 
 heard Knox preach made short work of that, and Laud's 
 ill-starred effort was one of the causes of his own betrayal 
 and the death of the king * 
 
 surpassed by that of any Bishop on the bench, had been treated with 
 cool contempt by men who were prepared to use their wit to defend 
 every abuse and to hinder all reform." The facts do not justify this 
 judgment. Bancroft, for example, time-serving courtier though he 
 was, recognized the need of reform and was ready to do all in his power 
 to effect it. But he knew that the real question at issue was not re- 
 form, but the way in which it could be brought about. When he had 
 convinced the king that it was not reform but reconstruction of the 
 church which the Puritans desired; when it was seen that the aim was 
 to displace episcopacy in favor of the Genevan discipline, there was 
 no hope of agreement, nor would anything less than the Presbyterian 
 establishment have satisfied the Puritans. But, on the other hand, 
 neither Bancroft nor Whitgift any more than Hooker claimed that 
 episcopacy was of divine origin, but only that it was well fitted for 
 the edification of the church. Instead of meeting the bishops on 
 Hooker's and Bancroft's plea of expediency, and retorting that epis- 
 copacy ought to be abolished because it was inexpedient and did not 
 work well, they (the Puritans) shifted the issue completely and ap- 
 pealed to Scripture and to the early chu/ch fathers to prove not that 
 episcopacy was a bad form of government, but that it had never been 
 warranted by Scripture or by the practice of the early church. Ban- 
 croft retorted that "Even if episcopacy was not the God-given scheme, 
 even if it did not work very well, they had educed no reasons for sup- 
 posing that their scheme would work any better. . . . The Puritans 
 treated such a demand as supererogation. Could the will of God be 
 at any time inexpedient? Their scheme, they declared, was demon- 
 strated by Scripture to be the will of God. . . . And yet here were 
 these bishops who did nothing but prate of expediency!" (See "Re- 
 construction of the English Church," vol. I, book H, chap. H, by Ro- 
 land G. Usher.) How completely the situation has changed ! The 
 argument for the apostolic succession has been taken over by high 
 churchmen when it had failed the Puritans. 
 
 * Archbishop Laud denied at his trial that he was responsible for the 
 Scotch liturgy, and laid the blame upon the intractable Scotch bishop)s. 
 We need not attempt here to untangle the skein of intrigue in which 
 
WORSHIP i6i 
 
 In 1660 the Savoy Conference was held, and, though the 
 saintly Baxter pleaded the cause of the Presbyterians, the 
 churchmen were too embittered to yield on any point, 
 and so the last opportunity to heal the schism was lost. 
 
 After the Restoration, in 1660, there were certain 
 changes made in the book, the one in the rubric to the 
 ordination service being the most important, and from 
 that day there has been no change in the English book. 
 
 In 1790 the American book appeared. Like the First 
 Book of Edward the Sixth, it was largely the work of one 
 man. As that had been compiled by Cranmer, so this 
 was the work of Bishop White. Although the Preface 
 states there is no desire to depart from the English Church 
 save as political conditions made necessary, nevertheless 
 the good bishop states that advantage was taken "of the 
 happy opportunity" to make certain changes which seem 
 to Americans an improvement. For example, the " Venite " 
 in the American book composed from the 95th and 96th 
 Psalms makes a more joyful hymn with which to begin 
 public worship than does lite 95th, with its gruesome threat 
 of never entering into God's rest. 
 
 On the other hand, the American revisers were not 
 equally successful in their treatment of the "Te Deiun." 
 "Thine honorable, true, and only Son" is stronger than 
 "Thine adorable"; moreover, a certain provincial squeam- 
 ishness seems to have led to the change of "When thou 
 tookest upon thee to deliver man, thou didst not abhor 
 the Virgin's womb." This is a truer translation of "Tu ad 
 liberandum suscepturus hominem non horruisti Virginis 
 uterum " than our somewhat feeble, "Didst humble thyself 
 to be bom of a Virgin," nor is the meaning of the latter 
 phrase quite clear. The great hymn expresses the "hu- 
 miliation" of the incarnation, following the creed. The 
 
 the king and the archbishop and the Scotch bishops all had part. A 
 fair statement of the whole case is presented in that excellent book, read 
 since this was written, "The Holy Communion in Great Britain and 
 America," by J. Brett Langstaff, p. 100. 
 
i62 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 humiliation, it was believed, consisted in "taking upon him 
 the form of a servant," and being "born of a woman." It 
 was not the virginity of the mother but the reality of the 
 humanity of the Son that the writer, following the creed, 
 desired to emphasize. But the American version would 
 seem to imply that birth from a virgin is a deeper humilia- 
 tion than birth from a married woman, the last thing the 
 holders of the traditional opinion would acknowledge. But 
 had the American revisers done nothing more than free our 
 book from the anachronism of the so-called Athanasian 
 creed, they would deserve our thanks. 
 
 Under the leadership of the late Dr. William R. Hunt- 
 ington the Prayer-Book was again revised, and, while the 
 changes were unimportant, the fact was significant, be- 
 cause, as Phillips Brooks said, it showed that our church 
 did not consider the Prayer-Book infallible, and so opened 
 the way for further changes as they became desirable. It 
 was, however, enriched by a new collect, written by Dr. 
 Huntington for the festival of the Transfiguration, August 
 6, which shows that the liturgical gift has not departed. 
 It is, I think, one of the most beautiful of the collects. 
 "That we, being delivered from the disquietude of this 
 world, may be permitted to behold the king in his beauty," 
 was the prayer that issued from that study in Grace Church 
 rectory, into which the ceaseless roar of the trafl&c of Broad- 
 way enters with disquieting confusion. 
 
 While this is being written, there is another revision 
 in process in which there is a tendency to revert to the 
 First Book of Edward the Sixth. This is disquieting to 
 some, but it is what was to have been expected, for it will 
 be noted that each revision has alternately shown the in- 
 fluence of Puritan and Catholic. 
 
 This long historical review* has had two purposes: first, 
 to show that in this book of devotion is embodied the 
 history of the English people, which is our history as well. 
 
 * I have largely followed Bishop Barry's "Teacher's Prayer-Book." 
 
WORSHIP 163 
 
 It was the first of those great spiritual bonds of which the 
 works of Shakespeare and the King James Bible are the 
 other two. But it should be remembered that this one 
 was compiled fifteen years before the gifted child of Avon 
 was bom whose magic wand was to make the whole world 
 kin, and sixty-one years earlier than the sonorous trans- 
 lation of the King James version. 
 
 It is a comprehensive service-book, the like of which 
 can nowhere else be found. There are hymns in this book 
 from the temple worship at Jerusalem, stories from the 
 Gospels, letters written to the apostolic churches; there 
 are prayers which were first heard when the little church 
 began its perilous journey from Asia into Europe; there 
 are words of wisdom from Alexandria — utterances which 
 are the outcome of Greece's long search for truth; there 
 are solemn warnings from Rome, that there can be no lib- 
 erty which is not founded in law, no freedom which does 
 not express itself in order. There are cries of agony from 
 France, smitten by the plague and threatened by the Sara- 
 cens. There are prayers of saints and martjnrs, of 
 crusaders, and kings and bishops and unknown monks, of 
 reformers and scholars and simple men and women. 
 
 This is what Cranmer and his fellow laborers gave to 
 England, hoping it would be a spiritual bond to bind to- 
 gether in devotion the children of the petty little kingdoms 
 which were at last united into the nation we call Great 
 Britain. Little they dreamed that this book would be 
 carried to the uttermost parts of the earth, to Canada and 
 South Africa, to New Zealand and Australia, to every 
 island in the seven seas, and still less that a mighty re- 
 public would arise in the West where their work would 
 be received with joy, and that this book would become a 
 spiritual bond between the two great nations, separated 
 in politics but one in their ideals and so one in love. 
 
 The review of the various changes made in the Prayer- 
 Book, since the first book appeared, was not alone to show 
 
l64 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 the historical development of the devotional life of the 
 English people, but also because the American book is in a 
 sense more ''Catholic" than the English. 
 
 The First Book of Edward gathered up the various ser- 
 vices of the past and contemporary devotions, and that of 
 the Second gave the Protestant stamp to the book, which 
 endears it to us, but, as we have seen, with the exception 
 of the changes made at the Restoration, none of the other 
 attempts to improve the book succeeded in England. But, 
 though the changes wished by Elizabeth were not carried 
 out, while the king's supremacy was insisted upon, the 
 American book got rid of that, owing to the political revo- 
 lution. The Hampton Court Conference came to naught, 
 fortunately for us, as well as for the English Church. But 
 Laud's Prayer-Book has had a curious history, which is of 
 interest to us. When the nonjurors were driven from 
 England, they found refuge in the Episcopal Church of 
 Scotland, and Laud's book was in accordance with their 
 ecclesiastical notions. Now, when Dr. Seabury went to 
 England, seeking consecration at Lambeth, he was rejected 
 because the oath of allegiance to the king was essential. 
 So to Scotland he went and was consecrated by the suc- 
 cessors of the nonjurors. But one of the conditions was 
 that he should use his influence to have the prayer of con- 
 secration in the communion service incorporated into the 
 American book. So, by a strange irony of fate, the book 
 which the Puritans refused to listen to in England was 
 adopted in this particular by their children in this country ! 
 I do not think it can be denied that this prayer is nobler 
 than the corresponding one in the Enghsh book.* Indeed, 
 
 * Nevertheless, it would probably have been better had what is 
 called The Prayer of Acceptance, beginning, "Wherefore, O Lord and 
 Heavenly Father ..." been placed after the reception of the com- 
 munion, as expressing the will of the communicant, strengthened by 
 the reception of the sacrament, to offer and present soul and body as 
 a reasonable (that is, spiritual), holy, and living sacrifice unto God. 
 See "The Holy Communion in Great Britain and America," J. Brett 
 Langstaff, p. 65. 
 
WORSHIP i6s 
 
 while objection has been raised against it on the ground 
 that it savors of the doctrine of the mass, a careful exam- 
 ination will show that it has much of the spirit of the 
 ancient Greek liturgies in which the fruits of the earth are 
 offered in thanks to the Giver of all good.* 
 
 The failure of the Savoy Conference was the cause of 
 much of the weakness of the English Church in the days 
 which foUowed. But many of the suggestions made by 
 the Presbyterians have been incorporated in the American 
 book. The Preface to the Prayer-Book refers to the Savoy 
 Conference as "the great and good work which miscarried 
 at that time," showing that while the compilers of the 
 American book were willing for the sake of peace to accept 
 the changes suggested in Archbishop Laud's book, they 
 were rather in S3mipathy with the Presbyterian revisers of 
 1689. 
 
 Some years ago a distinguished layman of one of the 
 non-liturgical churches, in addressing a meeting of Episco- 
 pal ministers, remarked that the use of a liturgy was an 
 "intellectual economy." This was not so wise a saying as 
 one would have looked for from such a wise man. The 
 objection would be equally true of the art of the actor who 
 interprets Shakespeare. Doubtless there would be con- 
 siderable intellectual extravagance on the part of the actor 
 who attempted to improvise an expression of Hamlet's 
 vacillation, or lago's craft, or Portia's plea. But would 
 the result be to move the spectators to "terror and pity" ? 
 The art of interpretation is a high form of intellectual, as 
 well as emotional, activity. It is because this is forgotten 
 that so little is done to train the ministers of the Episcopal 
 Church in the dramatic art, and, as a consequence, the 
 liturgy is rendered dull, monotonous, and unintelligible. 
 But who has listened to the devotional rendering of the 
 solemn burial service, or the still more solemn marriage 
 service, or (in spite of serious blemishes) the lovely bap- 
 * This was the opinion of Bishop White. See ibid,^ p. 208. 
 
i66 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 tismal office, without feeling that the "depths were broken 
 up" ? It is said that those who heard Frederick Maurice 
 pray the familiar morning and evening prayers felt as 
 never before that they were in the presence of God. 
 
 Of course there is danger in approaching the divine lit- 
 urgy in the dramatic spirit. It may become *' theatrical" 
 and degenerate into what has been called "histrionic in- 
 sincerity," but the same danger lurks in all public prayer. 
 It becomes "theatrical" when the auditors are the object 
 of attention — as in the many-times-told story of the 
 "most eloquent prayer ever addressed to a Boston audi- 
 ence." But it is devoutly "dramatic" when the minister, 
 in solemn awe, interprets the awful tragedy of sin and 
 redemption, as in the presence of God. 
 
 In all Episcopal churches there may be fotmd three types 
 of worshippers: the "Catholic," who would have the lit- 
 urgy resemble, as far as possible, the mass — the less in- 
 telligible it is, the more devout it is supposed to be; the 
 "Protestant," who is indifferent to the "preliminary exer- 
 cises" in hope of an interesting sermon; and, lastly, those 
 who used to be called "Prayer-Book churchmen." To 
 these last the sermon is of no great consequence; it is the 
 service they love. They, I believe, represent the large 
 majority of the laity. Many of the clergy value the Epis- 
 copal Church chiefly because they believe that it alone 
 of the Reformed churches enjoys a valid ministry and has 
 kept the "faith once delivered to the saints"; but the laity, 
 while not entirely indifferent to these considerations, were 
 originally attracted to and have been held in loving alle- 
 giance to the church because they find spiritual delight in 
 the Prayer-Book. Doubtless they, like all of us, have the 
 "defects of their qualities," and are unwilling to see one 
 jot or tittle of the Prayer-Book changed. It is they who 
 hold their church back from ministering to the people ac- 
 cording to the needs of the present. They little guess that 
 they are hindering the scribe in his efforts to bring out of 
 
WORSHIP 167 
 
 his treasure things new as well as old. There are prayers 
 in the book which few have ever heard, because they are 
 embedded in unfamiliar services, such as the visitation of 
 the sick, the consecration of churches, and the family 
 morning and evening prayer. These might be brought 
 out into the Sunday service to the enrichment of the lit- 
 urgy. But there are many prayers not found in the lit- 
 urgy which might from time to time be substituted for the 
 appointed prayers with advantage, such as certain of 
 Bishop Wilson's, Cardinal Newman's, Stevenson's, and 
 Washington's noble prayer for the nation: "Almighty God: 
 We make our earnest prayer that thou wilt keep the 
 United States in thy holy protection; that thou wilt in- 
 cline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of sub- 
 ordination and obedience to the government, and enter- 
 tain a brotherly affection and love for one another and for 
 their fellow citizens of the United States at large. And, 
 finally, that thou wilt most graciously be pleased to dispose 
 us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves 
 with that charity, humility, and pacific temper of mind 
 which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our 
 blessed religion, and without a humble imitation of whose 
 example in these things we can never hope to be a happy 
 nation. Grant our supplication, we beseech thee, through 
 Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." * And, above aU, there 
 should be restored the ancient Hberty of the "prophet," 
 described in the apostolic constitution, to leave the lit- 
 urgy and break forth into spontaneous prayer, "as the 
 spirit gives him utterance." 
 
 Besides enrichment there should be retranslation. There 
 are obsolete words which have radically changed their 
 meaning since the days of Shakespeare, and so mislead 
 the people. Such words as "prevent" and "take no care 
 
 * I am indebted for a copy of this prayer to the Hon. Roland Mau- 
 rice, of Philadelphia, who informs me that it is used every Sunday in 
 the Memorial Chapel at Valley Forge. 
 
i68 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 for" and "person" are not only confusing but the last 
 positively heretical. Both rubrics and public opinion hin- 
 der such changes. But suppose the non-liturgical churches 
 were to use the book with greater freedom than is allowed 
 its custodians, can it be doubted that there would be a 
 deepening of the spiritual Hfe as the sense of individual 
 dependence was enlarged by the consciousness of the unity 
 of Christ's body ? "0 God, we have heard with our ears 
 and our fathers have declared unto us the noble works 
 that thou didst in their days and in the old time before 
 them." It is not without significance that Edward Ever- 
 ett Hale, in his moving tale of "The Man Without a 
 Country," should have depicted PhiKp Nolan lying dead, 
 with the "Episcopal Prayer-Book open at the prayer for 
 the President of the United States." 
 
 Are we not justified in saying, in no sectarian spirit, 
 that this is indeed a wonderful book ? Are we not right 
 in treasuring it, not as an exclusive privilege but as the 
 heirloom of the American people? Are we not justified 
 in believing that if it were seriously considered by those 
 who have never examined it, it might be a bond of union 
 because it brings all sorts and conditions of men together 
 at the throne of God? We who have learned from it and 
 have used it these many years think of it as "a golden 
 censor filled with incense, which are the prayers of saints." 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 DOCTRINE 
 
 A, The Faith of the Church 
 
 We have now reviewed the theory of the ministry and 
 the manner of worship which divide instead of unite the 
 churches. 
 
 We have now to consider the doctrine of the church, 
 and immediately we are met with the objection that here 
 lies the insuperable barrier to the unity of Christian people. 
 "Would it not be better,'' it is frequently said, **if the 
 churches were to agree to dispense with doctrine, on which 
 men can never agree, and unite in good-will and helpful 
 works that would benefit mankind?" But the first ques- 
 tion we should ask is: Is there as much difference as is com- 
 monly supposed between the churches on the subject of 
 doctrine as there is on the ministry and manner of wor- 
 ship? I think quite the contrary is true. While on the 
 question of discipline and worship the differences are acute, 
 it will be found that the Greek, the Roman, and the various 
 Protestant churches are, with one small exception, agreed 
 that the fundamental doctrine of the Christian religion is 
 the Trinity of the One God. We have not, then, to con- 
 sider now, as previously, the question. Why should not 
 the Episcopal Church abandon that which the large ma- 
 jority of our fellow Christians in this land have already 
 abandoned? but, rather, Why should not all the churches 
 in America follow the example of that small but never- 
 theless highly intelligent body of disciples who have cast 
 aside as unreasonable the doctrine which the great ma- 
 jority still hold, and with them devote themselves to an 
 increase in the knowledge of science and the improvement 
 
 169 
 
I70 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 of humanity in those matters which it is in their power 
 to influence ? 
 
 If this were a new movement in the history of the church, 
 it might be supposed that at last the truth had been dis- 
 covered, and that all we had to do was to follow it. But, 
 as a matter of fact, it is very old. That is to say, it has 
 been tried more than once in the history of the church, 
 and the result has never been what its promoters fondly 
 expected. 
 
 The Arian schism in the fourth century differs in many 
 important respects from the later anti-Trinitarian move- 
 ments; but it has this in common with them all, that it 
 denied that Jesus Christ is the unique partaker of the di- 
 vinity of the Father. The result of that opinion was tested 
 when the Mohammedan invasion ravaged the churches of 
 the East, northern Africa, and southern Europe. The 
 Arian churches could not endure the fiery trial. Not that 
 they were less devout or less courageous than the Catholics, 
 but because, when it came to a question of life and death, 
 it did not seem worth while to die for an opinion which 
 after all did not affect, in their view, the essential of the 
 faith, which was the unity of God. The Mohammedan 
 believed that as truly as did the Catholic — ^perhaps more 
 truly — therefore, the Arians did not fall martyrs to the 
 faith, they were absorbed into Islam. It may be said that 
 the same is true of the Eastern churches. Undoubtedly, 
 but what is significant in the lapse of those churches is 
 that Christ as a "living, breathing, feeling man" had given 
 place to a phantom in which men could not trust when 
 the test came. Apollinarianism led to the Monophysite 
 heresy, and that in turn to the Monothilite. Whatever 
 truth these heresies enshrined, and unquestionably they 
 did stand for a vital truth, nevertheless the man Christ 
 Jesus disappeared in a mist of speculation. Men will not 
 die for a dogma but only for the faith. Much as we may 
 dislike the phraseology of the so-called Athanasian creed. 
 
DOCTRINE 171 
 
 it is nevertheless true, as has been finely said, that the 
 *^Quicunque vuW was the Marseillaise of the early French 
 Church* The men who — not " rightly," as it is erroneously 
 translated, but "firmly" — ^held the Catholic faith died 
 that Europe might not become as Turkey. They died for 
 Christ because they believed Christ to be as truly human 
 as themselves and as divine as the Father. 
 
 The question now is not whether they were right or 
 vnrong; nor whether they were able to express their faith 
 in a formula which meets our approval, but: Why did the 
 church which had done so fine a missionary work in the 
 conversion of the Barbarians, which saved Europe by mak- 
 ing its invaders Christian and brought them to a condition 
 where they were able to absorb the religion and civilization 
 of Europe, fail, when the Catholics met the wave of the 
 Saracen invasion like a rock? The dramatic check of the 
 Barbarians by Pope Leo I has been the subject of pic- 
 ture and pen, but the obscure work of the early Arian mis- 
 sionaries which alone made the Barbarians responsive to 
 the church's appeal has been forgotten. f 
 
 In the sixteenth century the Socinian current in the 
 Reformation flood had elements which have enriched and 
 purified the life of all the churches. But it was unable 
 to satisfy the longing of the human soul for a gospel of 
 redemption. Socinianism protested, and we believe rightly, 
 against the Calvinistic doctrine that man was so far gone 
 from "original righteousness" that nothing less than the 
 sacrifice of the sinless Son of God could placate the wrath 
 of his offended Father. We call this the Calvinistic doc- 
 trine 0! atonement, but indeed it was part of the damnosa 
 hereditas which Proteatantism had inherited from the 
 mediaeval church. A pit)test against the Protestant 
 
 • "Christ's Thought of God," J. M. Wilson. 
 
 t Attila, of course, was a Hun, that is, a heathen, but a very con- 
 siderable part of the army which he led into Italy was nominally Chris- 
 tian. See Chapter II. 
 
172 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 scholasticism was needed and the church should be grate- 
 ful to Socinus for making it; but what Socinus and his 
 followers overlooked was that the world cannot be saved 
 by a protest, it must have a gospel of salvation. Whatever 
 may or may not be necessary for redemption, it is redemp- 
 tion which the world needs. It was because it failed to 
 lay hold of the truth that the holiness of God is the essen- 
 tial element in the divine nature that Socinianism became 
 an arid intellectualism, and so failed to appeal to the con- 
 science of the churches of the Reformation. 
 
 The Deistic movement of the eighteenth century refused 
 to believe in the divinity of Jesus because the argument 
 on which the church thought it necessary to base it — the 
 power of working miracles — ^made no impression upon 
 men like Hume, who were convinced that the finger of 
 God had never touched this earth since the hand of God 
 made man out of the dust of the ground and then left him 
 to his own devices ! 
 
 In its noblest and most spiritual form the anti-Trini- 
 tarian protest appeared in England and New England in 
 the eighteenth century as Unitarianism. Who can esti- 
 mate the debt the churches of every name owe to the 
 men and women of the Unitarian faith ? The Calvinistic 
 churches had degraded Christ by making him a mere in- 
 strument for the placating of a God who was spiritually 
 "muscle bound," and had not the power which every good 
 man possesses of freely forgiving those who have done 
 him wrong. Moreover, they failed to see that God's hatred 
 of sin was not because of any offense to his divine majesty 
 but because sin is the destruction of the divine life in God's 
 child. It was the Unitarian Church which showed us the 
 Father by revealing the Son as friend and example, making 
 him appear before us as a "living, breathing, thinking 
 man," in whose companionship we, like the disciples of 
 old, could feel at home with God. At the time of the Uni- 
 tarian revolt from what was called the Orthodox Church 
 
DOCTRINE 173 
 
 in New England, the knowledge of God was expressed 
 much in this way: "God is arbitrary Will; he can do what 
 he pleases; and he did please to choose a certain number 
 to be saved out of this world, but even there he was limited 
 and in order to accompKsh his purpose, it was necessary 
 to subject his Son, the Sinless One, to an excruciating and 
 shameful death in order that his own heart might be moved 
 to love sinners." Now, inasmuch as the whole doctrine 
 of the divinity of Christ was at that time based on the 
 necessity of the vicarious punishment of the Son of God, 
 when the moral revolt of the Unitarians against that doc- 
 trine, unworthy of God because unworthy of man, oc- 
 curred, the divinity of Christ fell with it, because it was 
 the only proof with which they were familiar. No one who 
 knows the history of the churches in this land can doubt 
 that every one of them owes a great debt to the Unitarian 
 protest which literally brought Christ back into the 
 church.* As Dean Rashdall has said: "Modern Unitarian- 
 ism was originally quite as much a protest against the 
 traditional doctrine of the Atonement as against the tradi- 
 tional doctrine of the Trinity. The value of these protests 
 must be acknowledged by all who feel how deeply the tradi- 
 tional views have libelled the view of God's character which 
 finds expression in the teachings of Christ and in a truly 
 Christian doctrine of the Incarnation.''t 
 
 It is popularly supposed that this libel originated with 
 Calvin and was cast into its rigid form by Jonathan Ed- 
 wards, but, as a matter of fact, Calvin, the great French 
 lawyer, took part of the theory from Anselm, who in turn 
 had borrowed from St. Augustine; so that the record of this 
 doctrine is not to be found in Calvin's "Institutes," but 
 rather in Anselm's "Cur Deus homo," the tract of St. 
 
 * I owe this to the late Prof. A. V. G. Allen, though I cannot at the 
 moment verify the reference. 
 
 t "The Idea of Atonement in Christian Theology," Hastings Rash- 
 dall, p. 43 (Macmillan & Co.). 
 
174 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 Augustine against Pelagius, and St. PauFs rabbinical teach- 
 ing in the Epistle to the Romans. 
 
 But, while all the churches should gladly acknowledge the 
 debt, it cannot be denied that the Unitarian churches are 
 not only becoming smaller, through some failure to appeal 
 to plain people, but also that their own children are leav- 
 ing them and are many of them agnostic in their philoso- 
 phy> and not a few, ignorant of the first principles of the 
 life of Christ, are living on their spiritual capital in the 
 vain hope that the ethics of the gospel will survive when 
 the Master who gave the new law of life with its sanctify- 
 ing power is thought of as a myth. The God of Unitarian- 
 ism tends inevitably to become an individual removed from 
 the universe, a conception which modem science has made 
 it impossible for thoughtful men to hold. 
 
 Not a few earnest Unitarians acknowledge this, but com- 
 fort themselves with the thought that the reason their 
 church is losing ground is due to the fact that its message 
 is now being preached by other churches. There is truth 
 in this. All the churches have been influenced by the 
 Unitarian movement, but they were able to absorb it and 
 make it vital because they have learned that the essential 
 truth in it is a forgotten truth which in no way conflicts 
 with the doctrine of the Trinity. One most important 
 effect that Unitarianism has had upon the Trinitarian 
 churches has been to drive them to examine their faith as 
 expressed in the ancient formulas and ask themselves what 
 these formulas really mean. 
 
 The Unitarian believes them to teach a plurality of 
 gods. Therefore he will say: "Supposing it to be true that 
 the Unitarian protests have failed to convert the church, 
 it does not follow that the truth for which the Unitarian 
 stands is weak, but that it is in advance of the time. The 
 pragmatic test is not the final one. If what we believe to 
 be true is not convincing," says the Unitarian, "it may be 
 due to the fact that the church is unable to receive the 
 
DOCTRINE 175 
 
 'truth as it is in Jesus.' We are convinced that the unity 
 of God was taught by Jesus, and that the church, under 
 the influence of Greek speculation, has fallen away from 
 the * faith once deUvered to the saints.'" 
 
 This is indeed a serious charge and deserves our most 
 careful consideration. Whether the statement that the 
 churches fell away from the early faith be true or not, it is 
 certain that the reformers did not believe that to be the 
 fact. They made not the general councils but the Scrip- 
 tures the final appeal. If the decisions of the councils 
 were contrary to the teaching of the Scripture, then the 
 churches should not be bound by them. This is particu- 
 larly true of the English Church, as a reference to the 
 articles will show.* May it not be that our Unitarian 
 brethren have misunderstood the teaching of the church ? 
 This would not be strange, if it be true, as it undoubtedly 
 is, that many who call themselves Trinitarians have un- 
 questionably misunderstood it. 
 
 Turn to the faith of those who call themselves Trini- 
 tarians. What is it they really believe ? If we speak the 
 truth we must admit that many of them are really tri- 
 theists — that is, polytheists. They have lost the first ele- 
 ment of the faith of Jesus, that the "Lord our God is one." 
 They are really worshipping three gods. They visualize 
 the Father as a venerable man, sitting on a throne some- 
 where above the sky. The Saviour who hung upon the 
 cross they think of as sharing the Father's throne — another 
 man — ^and the third they find it difficult to make an image 
 of, and so try to satisfy themselves with the figure of a 
 dove, or else dissolve it into the atmosphere. So it has 
 come to pass that the unity of God has largely departed 
 from the popular theology of the day. There are not a 
 few devout Christians, not only among the laity but among 
 the clergy as well, who would be glad if the doctrine of the 
 Trim'ty were not dwelt upon on Trinity Sunday. They 
 * See Articles XX and XXII, Prayer-Book, pp. 561, 562. 
 
176 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 feel instinctively that something is wrong, and though they 
 desire to hold the ancient faith, they wish they might hold 
 it in some way that did not call for discussion or definition. 
 Yet there is only one question to-day to which mankind 
 seeks an answer, and tiat is: "How are we to think of 
 God?" 
 
 Let us foUow the invitation of the Unitarian and turn 
 to the teaching of the Bible. As we open the Old Testa- 
 ment we find that the earliest thought of God was very 
 crude but entirely natural — that is, what was to be expected 
 from a people who wished to live with their God. God 
 was conceived as an heroic man. He was beHeved to be 
 interested in the Jews alone. The Jews shared the com- 
 mon belief of the people of their day. Each nation had its 
 God as Israel had. Jehovah dwelt on Mount Sinai, and 
 the Jews believed that on one occasion Moses penetrated 
 into the very presence of God and saw him, and that God 
 with his finger wrote on the tables of stone the law which 
 they believed was the expression of the Divine Will. 
 
 This belief continued for centuries. Then in the time 
 of the great prophets, a nobler conception of God came to 
 holy men. Isaiah says: "In the year that King Uzziah 
 died I saw the Lord, great and lifted up, and his train 
 fiUed the temple." God no longer dwelt on Mount Sinai, 
 he dwelt in the heaven of heavens. His law was not con- 
 fined to the Holy Land, as Jonah had thought; he was the 
 Lord of the whole earth, though in Jerusalem alone could 
 he be rightly worshipped. The transcendence of God had 
 now banished or was slowly driving out the earlier thought 
 of a local God. 
 
 In the latter part of the Book of Isaiah another prophet 
 took up the theme. He lived more than a century and a 
 half later than the prophet whose name we have given to 
 the whole book. He had been through the great experi- 
 ence of the Exile. He had found God in the uttermost 
 parts of the earth, after the temple had been destroyed, 
 
DOCTRINE 177 
 
 and he writes: "Thus said the high and holy one which 
 inhabiteth eternity, I dwell in the high and lofty place, 
 with him also that is of a humble and contrite heart." 
 What a revelation of God's glory had come to Israel when 
 the prophet could speak of God as indeed in the heaven of 
 heavens and yet also in the contrite heart of the humblest 
 soul! 
 
 This is the thought of God in which Jesus was trained 
 and from which we believe he never departed. I do not 
 say there may not be found expressions in the gospel which 
 might lead us to believe that our Saviour shared the earlier 
 and cruder conception of God, but such we believe to be 
 the reflection of those who failed to enter into the secret 
 chambers of his soul. John tells us that when Jesus came 
 to Samaria, where men were worshipping a God who dwelt 
 on their moimtain as the Jews were worshipping a God 
 who they believed dwelt on Mount Zion, he said: *'That 
 is not the way to worship God. He does not dwell here 
 or there. God is spirit"; that is, like the atmosphere, 
 penetrating every part of life. We then are not to think 
 of God as having form, any more than the air we breathe. 
 We are not to think of him as dwelling apart from the uni- 
 verse, but as permeating all life. So the divine life is 
 really to be found wherever there is life. Eternal life is 
 manifesting itself in myriad forms. 
 
 This thought of God is as far removed from the popular 
 Trinitarianism as it is from the popular Unitarianism. It 
 is indeed a thought in which each can find itself at home. 
 
 Children repeat the experience of the race. The chil- 
 dren to-day think of God as a great man dwelling apart 
 from the universe from all eternity, and then some day de- 
 ciding to make the world. This is unworthy of the mature 
 Christian. He should think of God as eternal life, no more 
 confined by time than by space. We are to think of eter- 
 nal life as manifesting itself in the stars, in the hills *'in 
 verdure clad," in the fish of the sea, the fowls of the air, 
 
178 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 the creeping things on the earth, and, above all, in man, 
 different from all other creatures in the fact that, so far as 
 we know, he alone is conscious of failure, yet hopes and 
 dies in faith. AU are manifestations of the spirit, who is 
 God. 
 
 This thought is so closely allied to Pantheism that it 
 is often mistaken for Pantheism. And, indeed, if it be 
 unsupplemented by other thoughts of God, to that it must 
 come. And if it come to that, then there will be a falling 
 away from that ethical idea of God which was the ground 
 of Jesus* revelation. 
 
 So we are driven to ask ourselves what we can know of 
 the character of this divine "atmosphere." That question 
 arose among the Twelve. Philip spoke not only for him- 
 self and for the Twelve, but for us as well when he said: 
 "Lord, show us the Father and it suflSceth us." "What is 
 this spirit like, that you call Father? What is its char- 
 acter? If we knew that, we should be content." We feel 
 the same. Jesus said: "He that hath seen me hath seen 
 the Father also." What does that mean, except that the 
 character of God is like the character of Jesus? And what 
 does that mean except that the character of God can only 
 be fully revealed in man? Something of the glory of God 
 is revealed in nature. But the heart of God can only be 
 revealed by man. By man? By what man? Jesus dares 
 to say what we should never dare to say of ourselves nor 
 of the holiest we have known, that God is like him. If 
 we follow the teaching, we shall find that Jesus is saying, 
 not once or twice: "You love, you obey me, you trust 
 me, you know that I am about to sacrifice myself for you, 
 you believe that I am going to prepare an eternal home 
 for you, you are convinced that no matter how often you 
 fail me I will never fail you. You know that I have been 
 going about among the outcasts seeking to save the lost. 
 Now believe that it is God who is doing all this. Believe 
 that I am dwelling in the Eternal Spirit, and that what I 
 
DOCTRINE 179 
 
 do in this short space of time and on the little stage of Judea 
 where God first spoke to Abraham, God my Father has 
 ever been doing and will ever do. I dwell in the Eternal 
 Spirit and it dwells in me. It is this that gives me power. 
 Yet the power you see is nothing compared with the eternal 
 power of the Father who is greater than I. You call me 
 good, but my goodness is but a faint reflection of the per- 
 fect and complete holiness of God." Jesus never called 
 himself God. Perhaps he spoke of himself as the Son of 
 God, certainly the evangelists so spoke of him — the per- 
 fect manifestation of the eternal as far as such manifes- 
 tation is possible in a perfect human being. Now, to speak 
 of this as delegated power or goodness is to misunderstand 
 the meaning of Jesus' life. It was not delegated, as if his 
 life was alien to that of God, it was manifested because his 
 character was essentially the same as the character of God. 
 But it is neither power nor self-satisfied goodness which 
 is the ultimate characteristic of God. It is love. God is 
 love and he who dwelt in love as no other life has ever done, 
 God also dwelt in him as in no other. "We have seen," 
 says John, "the glory of the only-begotten of the Father, 
 and it was true and gracious." From that day God the 
 mighty became the father to all those men who had known 
 Jesus, and they found rest to their souls. They did not 
 speculate about God, they did not seek for proofs of God's 
 existence, they knew God and foimd that they had eternal 
 life. 
 
 But how few were they who came into contact with 
 Jesus! About one hundred and twenty, we read in the 
 Acts, were assembled in his name on the day of Pentecost. 
 But that little company had a knowledge of God that made 
 them different from any people who up to that time had 
 lived upon the earth. For those who had received Jesus 
 as their Lord and Master knew God not only as the eternal 
 upholding power of the universe, but also as love com- 
 muning with them. What now was to be the fate of those 
 
i8o THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 who, never having had the privilege of the first disciples, 
 were to live in the time to come? Jude, we are told, was 
 troubled by this question and asked Jesus to answer it: 
 "Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us 
 and not unto the world?" And Jesus said: "I will mani- 
 fest myself unto the world. If any man love me, my Father 
 will love him, and we will come to him and dwell with him." 
 How far John's account is to be taken as the ipsissima 
 verba of Jesus and how far as the expression of the 
 church's experience need not be considered here. The 
 essential thing is that it reveals the expanding influence 
 of the principle taught by Jesus. What interests us in 
 this connection is: How was this promise fulfilled, or how 
 did this experience arise? The first disciples had found 
 that God dwelt in them while they were in fellowship with 
 Jesus, but Jesus was about to depart; who could do for 
 those who came after what Jesus had done for them ? They 
 said that Jesus had told them that it would be by the minis- 
 tration of the Holy Spirit. If any man loved Jesus, his 
 Father would love him as the disciples of Jesus knew he 
 loved them, and into his life would come a new spirit which 
 would mak'e him feel at home with God, as the disciples 
 of Jesus had felt at home with God. Paul, who lived to 
 see the fulfilment of this promise, wrote wonderful words 
 when he said: "No man can say that Jesus is Lord but 
 by the Holy Ghost." What that means, I think, is that 
 just as only the Divine can reveal the Divine, so only the Di- 
 vine can recognize the Divine. It was because Jesus was 
 uniquely divine that he could reveal God to man, and it 
 is because there is in every man something of the divine 
 that man is able to recognize that revelation. 
 
 This, I believe, is the faith in which all Christians j what- 
 ever they may call themselves, really live. It is not so much 
 the faith as the expression of the faith about which we 
 differ. But I do not think it ought to be difficult for those 
 who believe in the Trinity of the One God to express their 
 
DOCTRINE i8i 
 
 belief in simple language. We do not believe in three gods; 
 we believe in one God. But we are confident that in order 
 to know that one God as fully as it is possible for man to 
 know him, he must be experienced in the three manifes- 
 tations which we call Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Our 
 faith, we believe, is the same as the faith of Jesus. Note 
 I say our faith. The creed of Jesus was the expression of 
 his faith in the familiar language knowledge of God; and 
 while we know that simple-hearted men and women can 
 eat of that fruit and enjoy God without any knowledge of 
 the mystery of this universe, yet we also know that edu- 
 cated men and women who have devoted a vast deal of 
 time and thought to the elucidation of the mystery of this 
 universe cannot rest satisfied without some understanding 
 of the creeds in which their faith was formulated. 
 
 There are a few who will agree with this but yet will 
 say: "Why could not this faith have remained in the un- 
 formulated state in which the New Testament leaves it? 
 But, as that was not done, why can we not return to those 
 primitive days and discard the creeds which are unfamiliar 
 and obscure?" The answer is that we cannot get rid of 
 the history of the church, and begin our lives to-day as 
 if that history had never been. What we ought to do is 
 to ask ourselves what those men of old were trying to ex- 
 press, and then go on to ask if it be not possible, without 
 breaking with the past, to hold the faith and at the same 
 time rejoice in the larger knowledge which we have been 
 permitted to acquire. 
 
 See, then, what it was which the church of the fourth 
 century had in mind to do. It had to express Jesus' faith 
 in God in a form that would satisfy the Greek mind, which 
 was asking questions which the Jew would not have under- 
 stood. Just as in the development of the ministry the 
 church followed the road which the genius of Rome had 
 built, so in its theological development it followed the 
 lines already traced by Greek philosophy. We value the 
 
i82 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 organization because we believe it was developed under 
 the influence of the Divine Spirit; we value the creeds 
 because we believe that here too the spirit was making 
 its influence felt. We do not feel that the organization 
 is of such binding force that it may not be changed if in 
 changing times another form is found better fitted to the 
 days in which we live. That would be to deny that the 
 spirit is still abiding in the church. In the same way we 
 do not think the creeds are of such authority that the 
 church is not at liberty to express its living faith in 
 the intelligible language of this day; that would be to 
 deny that the spirit is still leading the faithful into the 
 truth. 
 
 If, however, we ask what form such a new creed should 
 take, we do not hesitate to say that while the ancient creeds 
 might with advantage be simplified, if we depart from 
 the ancient faith in the Trinity of God we shall find 
 that we have failed to satisfy the deepest longing of the 
 soul. 
 
 For, far as we seem to have travelled from the fourth 
 century, the problems of life have not essentially changed. 
 The church of the fourth century found itself face to face 
 with different theories of the divine. There was the pop- 
 ular belief in ^'gods many"; there was the Stoic belief in 
 the one God whose will was omnipotent and in opposition 
 to it man was helpless; and there was, coming in from the 
 East, the Pantheistic conception of God which included 
 all life, but was lacking in holiness of character. Each of 
 these represented a truth, but no one of them alone satis- 
 fied the soul of man. The church believed that Jesus' 
 revelation of God would satisfy, and it attempted to formu- 
 late its faith with these needs in mind. The result was the 
 so-called Nicene Creed. Stoicism's demand for a God 
 over all, who made and upholds the universe, was answered 
 in the declaration that God is our Father and Creator. 
 The polytheistic demand for a God who partook of the 
 
DOCTRINE 183 
 
 likeness of man was met by the assertion that the man 
 Christ Jesus was of the same substance as the Father. And 
 Pantheism found something congenial in the doctrine of 
 the Holy Spirit which is the giver of life. Are these de- 
 mands obsolete? Do we not find to-day the same feeling 
 manifesting itself in strange forms? Pantheism is a wide- 
 spread belief to-day in America, even though some of its 
 adherents have never heard the word. Stoic philosophy 
 is the religion of many a noble soul to-day as it was of old; 
 and William James, the most popular of modern philosophic 
 teachers, has intimated that Polytheism is a living faith. 
 Is this a time for the churches to say that the need 
 for dogma has passed ? There is need to-day for the church 
 to state with authority what its faith is. But that author- 
 ity must be more august than that of the councils. It 
 must be the authority of Jesus, who spoke with authority 
 because he spoke words that answered to the needs of the 
 soul, and the soul responded to his message and verified 
 it by experience. 
 
 I say that I believe that this truth is recognized by 
 thoughtful men in every church, and that this faith in God 
 as Trinity is the faith by which all, consciously or sub- 
 consciously, are living. I believe that the real difficulty 
 lies, not in the faith, but in the popular misapprehension 
 of the faith. This is the way the objection expresses it- 
 self: "We understand that the doctrine of the Trinity is 
 that there is one God in three persons. Then if God be a 
 'person' he too is an individual. There cannot then be 
 three individuals in one." But what has been overlooked 
 in this syllogism is, first, that God is not an "individual." 
 If he be, then we have the deistic God, in whom science 
 is making it impossible to believe. "Is God, then, not a 
 person?" The answer is: "No, if by person be meant a 
 solitary being." The personality of God is greater than 
 human personality. And that is what the fathers were 
 trying to say when they spoke of the Triune Personality of 
 
i84 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 God * In the second place, the word " person " has changed 
 in meaning so completely that it means in common speech 
 the very opposite of what the creeds affirm. An analogy 
 to this is found in the changed meaning of the word "pre- 
 vent." Every student of EngHsh literature knows that 
 in the sixteenth century the word "prevent" meant "to 
 go before in order to facilitate," whereas now it means "to 
 go before in order to frustrate." Let us imagine an his- 
 torical writer describing the battle of Antietam without 
 explaining in what sense he used the word "prevent." 
 See what the confusion of the modem reader would in- 
 evitably be on reading such a statement as this: "On the 
 17th of September, 1862, McClellan ordered Bumside to 
 move promptly at eight o'clock and to march to the Poto- 
 mac in order to prevent the capture of the whole Rebel 
 army by the Federal troops." Would it not be supposed 
 that McClellan was seeking to aid Lee's escape ? But the 
 
 *"God is a personal being — 'superpersonal,' if we like to say so, 
 but at least personal — as a person making his will known to us, and 
 demanding of us that we should deal with him as with a person, at 
 once our unerring Judge and our loving Father."— "Belief in God," 
 Bishop Gore, p. 134. 
 
 "Mr. Clement Webb ('God and Personality,* Allen & Unwin, 191 8, 
 p. 6i) has recently said that *it was in connection with the doctrine of 
 the Trinity that the words person and personality came to be used of 
 the Divine Being,* and that though personality in God is the orthodox 
 Christian doctrine, to speak of the personality of God has a suggestion 
 of the Unitarian heresy. Now, it is true that the terms for personality, 
 whether in Greek or Latin, were only elaborated in this connection. 
 But Christianity felt the importance of personality, both in man and 
 in God, before it found a term to express the idea. And the personality 
 of the one God was surely a central idea of the prophetic religion which 
 Christianity inherited long before any question was raised about per- 
 sonal distinction in the Godhead." — Ibid., p. 114. 
 
 Not a few devout souls are adverse to predicating the personality of 
 God because they conceive personality only as a limitation. But, on 
 the other hand, if the personality of God be denied, there is no possi- 
 bility of communion between God and man. Therefore, it seems best 
 to speak of personality in God, because we have no other term by which 
 we can express that spiritual experience which we call the communion 
 of the soul with God. 
 
DOCTRINE 185 
 
 archaic writer would really be trying to say that the object 
 of McClellan^s order was to faciL'tate the capture of the 
 Confederate troops. If the word "person" is to be used 
 at all, it is essential that it should be clearly understood in 
 what sense it is used. If it be supposed that in the andent 
 formularies of the faith the word "person" is used in the 
 modem sense, it leads inevitably to tritheism. 
 
 Atkanasius and the Nicene fathers would have been hor- 
 rified had they been told that they had set forth a doctrine 
 that stated that there were three individuals in the God- 
 head. They would have seen, as we do, that it would 
 have been like saying that three disciples — Peter and 
 James and John — ^were one Jesus ! But is the substance of 
 the Godhead personal or impersonal .'* If it be personal 
 the objection has no force. Is it, then, impersonal ? If 
 so, it means that it is a mysterious Ufe differentiated into 
 three self-consciousnesses or minds. But how does this 
 differ from polytheism except by the arbitrary limitation 
 of the gods to three? "Monotheism was saved by Atha- 
 nasius and the Council of Nicaea; and more and more, since 
 that turning-point in the development of doctrine. Chris- 
 tian thought has abandoned the way of looking at the 
 Persons of the Trinity as distinct minds acting in co-opera- 
 tion. The Catholic theory of the Holy Trinity — as formu- 
 lated by St. Augustine, and in a still clearer and more 
 philosophical form by St. Thomas Aquinas — represents 
 that God is One Consciousness, One Mind — a Trinity of 
 Power, Wisdom, and Will or Love — ^which together consti- 
 tute one self-conscious Being." * If personality in the 
 popular sense of the term be predicated of the Godhead, 
 it leads inevitably either to tritheism or to Unitarianism. 
 But the word is not so used in the creeds. 
 
 The modem study of psychology has shown that "per- 
 sonality is something not in essence singular but plural." f 
 
 * "The Idea of Atonement in Christian Theology," Hastings Rash- 
 dall, dean of Carlisle (Macmillan & Co., 1920), p. 444. 
 t J. F. Bethune-Baker. 
 
i86 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 And that means that the "man in the street" has no 
 clear understanding of the meaning of personality. If 
 embryonic hmnan personality is plural, how much more 
 must this be true of the one Perfect Personality, which 
 is God. Therefore it would be better to speak of "per- 
 sonality in God" rather than of the "personality oj 
 God." 
 
 As a matter of fact, the confusing formula does not 
 occur in the Nicene Creed. It came into the liturgy from 
 the so-called "Athanasian Creed," which is not a creed 
 and was not written by Athanasius. The word "person" 
 occurs twice in the services of the Prayer-Book. In the 
 litany we say: "O holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, 
 Three Persons and One God." In one of the prefaces in 
 the communion service for Trinity Sunday we say: ''Who 
 art one Lord, not only one person but three persons in one 
 substance. For what we believe of the glory of the Father 
 the same we believe of the glory of the Son and of the 
 Holy Ghost, without any difference or inequality." This 
 is a very ancient statement. It is taken from tiie Sarum 
 Missal, which came from the Sacramentary of Pope Gela- 
 sius (450 A. D.) and was drawn by him from a still earh'er 
 Greek mass. No one can understand what it means who 
 is not familiar with the Greek. How many of the laity 
 have the time or inclination for such research ? Therefore, 
 in the American book, a second Preface was inserted as an 
 alternative far better fitted for public worship:* "We give 
 thanks unto thee, Holy Father, Almighty and Everlasting 
 God, for the precious death and merits of thy Son, Jesus 
 Christ our Lord, and for the sending to us of the Holy 
 Spirit, the Comforter, who are one with thee in thy Eter- 
 nal Godhead." Now, inasmuch as the American compilers 
 of the book stated that it was not their intention to depart 
 from the doctrine of the English Church, it must be as- 
 
 ♦ See "The Holy Communion in Great Britain and America," J. Brett 
 Langstaff, p. 239. 
 
DOCTRINE 187 
 
 sumed that, in their judgment, the second Preface is the 
 equivalent of the first. If they are right, then the word 
 ''person'' cannot have the meaning in the liturgy which it 
 has in common speech. And this judgment is justified by 
 an examination of the Greek word which appears in our 
 liturgy as "person." We get it from the Latin ''persona," 
 whidi means a mask, that is, the visible sign through 
 whidi the sound of the voice of the actor came. These 
 masks were put on by the actor to play a certain part — a 
 father or a hero or a lover, as the case might be. But the 
 compilers of the creed were careful to say that they did 
 not think of these "masks" as being put on and off by the 
 Divine Actor; that was the error of SabeUius. Rather 
 they conceived them to be essential elements in the Divine 
 Nature. "Persona" was a translation of the Greek word 
 "hypostasis," for which there is neither Latin nor English 
 exact equivalent. It means, as near as we can guess, first 
 "reality," then "distinction," and then "manifestation." 
 So that we feel justified in saying that what the ancient 
 creeds meant to teach was that God must not be thought 
 of as a solitary individual, having no present relation to 
 the world, but that he is to be thought of as Eternal Spirit, 
 from all eternity having distinctions which are manifested 
 in the threefold revelation of God to man as Father, Son, 
 and Holy Spirit, and that each of these manifestations is 
 equally divine. Jesus, then, is not to be thought of as a 
 "second God," nor the Holy Spirit as merely an influence 
 — ^more or less diluted — but that when we commune with 
 the Father or the Son or the Holy Spirit we commune with 
 the Eternal Godhead. 
 
 The English Church deserves high praise for having 
 taken the doctrine of the Trinity out of the mists of meta- 
 physics and placed it where it was intended to be, in the 
 atmosphere of ethics. 
 
 It would probably be more consonant with modem 
 thought to speak of three "voices" rather than three 
 
i88 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 "persons" in the Divine Unity.* The voice of the Father 
 is heard in the storm, indeed, but also in the salient setting 
 of the sun, and in all the scenes of beauty which deck the 
 earth and makes us feel that the mysterious power which 
 often seems cruel is in reality love. The voice of Jesus, 
 which few, indeed, heard, but an echo of which can still be 
 heard in the words which those who listened to him have 
 recorded, interprets to us that other voice which reproves 
 and exhorts and comforts and inspires, bidding us "come 
 up higher.'' Each is the voice of the One God. 
 
 To say that God must be identified with but one "per- 
 son" or voice, which we call Father, leads inevitably to 
 Agnosticism. To identify God with Jesus, as if he had 
 never been revealed to the men of old, as the early Gnostics 
 would have done, as some modem Protestants are doing, is 
 to lose all sense of the majesty of the Eternal, and tends 
 to the degradation of God to a cheap good nature, forget- 
 ful of what it has cost to redeem our souls. To identify 
 God with that voice which indeed speaks to us as truly as 
 it spoke to Abraham, is to separate the church into its 
 component parts and lose all feeling of the "blessed com- 
 pany of all faithful people." 
 
 The English Church passed by the Nicene Creed and 
 chose the "Apostles' Creed," as stating its terms of mem- 
 bership. This was significant. The English people are far 
 more like the Romans than like the Greeks, and the prac- 
 tical value of the Roman creed appealed to them more 
 than the more speculative Greek confessions of faith. So 
 in the catechism the child is asked what it "chiefly learns 
 from the articles of its belief," i, e., the Apostles' Creed. 
 And the answer is that it learns three things which are the 
 essentials of the creed. First, to "believe in God the 
 Father, who hath made me and all the world. Secondly, 
 in God the Son, who hath redeemed me and all mankind; 
 and, thirdly, in God the Holy Ghost, who sanctifieth me 
 ♦See "Christ's Thought of God," J. M. Wilson. 
 
DOCTRINE 189 
 
 and all the people of God." On this faith the religious 
 life of the child is built. So when it says, 
 
 "Now I lay me down to sleep, 
 I pray the Lord my soul to keep," 
 
 it is prayer to God thought of as Father. When it says, 
 
 "Jesus, tender Shepherd, hear me, 
 Bless thy little lamb to-night," 
 
 it is in communion with God as revealed in the Shepherd 
 of our souls. When it says, 
 
 "And when, dear Saviour, I kneel down morning and night in 
 prayer, 
 Something there is within my heart that tells me thou art 
 there," 
 
 it is communing with God as Holy Spirit. 
 
 This is not speculative, it is ethical. The child grows to 
 maturity in the consciousness that protecting, redeeming, 
 sanctifying love is with it from the beginning to the end 
 of life. This is the glory of the "Eternal Trinity." To 
 know that God is as near us when we pray as he was near 
 to the earth when the "morning stars sang together and 
 all the sons of God shouted for joy," to know that in 
 Jesus we see the Father as truly as did Philip, to be filled 
 with the spirit and bring forth the fruits thereof, is to 
 know God, not as a theory but as a sublime spiritual expe- 
 rience. God is spirit; seen in the glory of the universe, 
 witnessed to in the life of Jesus, experienced in sanctifying 
 prayer. 
 
 This faith has come to us through apostles, saints, and 
 martyrs. It requires courage to hold it and confess it to- 
 day as truly, though in a different way, as when the Mo- 
 hammedan invasion threatened to overwhelm the world. 
 We shall not be persecuted, only scorned by the half- 
 
IQO THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 educated. We must bear the strain which comes when 
 the ancient words seem in conflict with our incomplete 
 knowledge. We can learn what the words mean if we will 
 give the time to their study. But it requires no study to 
 believe that the Eternal is revealing himself unto us as 
 Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and that each of these mani- 
 festations is equally divine. I say it does not require great 
 knowledge, but it does require great faith, that is, the in- 
 tense activity of our spiritual nature. But I venture to 
 say that it requires no more to believe in the divinity of 
 the Son and of the Holy Spirit than to believe in the divin- 
 ity of the Father. If there be in this universe anything 
 that answers to our thought of the divine power and good- 
 ness and love, it is not easy to find it in nature nor in the 
 experiences of life. Our wisest plans are frustrated, our 
 dearest hopes are disappointed, our tenderest feelings are 
 lacerated, until it seems vain to hope that there can be 
 both power and goodness behind and before, laying its 
 hand upon us. It is the life of Jesus which keeps alive 
 this faith. It is the witness of the spirit which leads us to 
 feel that this faith is not vain. This, as I understand it, is 
 the meaning of that sublime prayer which Cranmer wrote 
 as the collect for Trinity Sunday: 
 
 "Almighty and Everlasting God, who has given unto us, 
 thy servants, grace by the confession of a true faith to 
 acknowledge the glory of the Eternal Trinity, and in the 
 power of the Divine Majesty to worship the Unity; we be- 
 seech thee that thou wouldest keep us steadfast in that 
 faith, and evermore defend us from all adversities, who 
 livest and reignest, one God, world without end." 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 DOCTRINE 
 
 B, The Catholic Creeds 
 
 In the preceding chapter it was asserted that faith in 
 the triune personality of God is the fundamental doctrine 
 of the Christian church. Yet it may be objected: *'If the 
 doctrine be so liable to misapprehension, as seems to be 
 the case, would it not be better to abandon the ancient 
 creeds and substitute for them some simpler form of be- 
 lief, which, by stating the faith in modern language, would 
 avoid such misunderstandings?" No doubt there would 
 be manifest advantages in so doing, to which attention will 
 be called a little later. I believe not a few of the clergy of 
 the Episcopal Church would agree that it would be better 
 if the Apostles' Creed were made the end rather than the 
 beginning of Christian education. But whatever form a 
 simpler expression of the church's faith might take, there 
 would be a loss if there should be any weakening of the 
 authoritative message of the church. That authority, 
 however, can never be preserved by a traditional repetition 
 of the words which once moved the hearts of men; it must 
 be tested by the response of the deepest longings of the 
 human soul to-day. 
 
 The dogmatic weakness of the churches arises not so 
 much from the retention of the ancient formularies as from 
 the uncertainty of their meaning. The pulpit is turning 
 more and more to economics and politics rather than to 
 the truth of the Being of God. These are matters which 
 because they need to be sanctified by the message of the 
 church may properly be referred to by the pulpit, but can 
 
 191 
 
192 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 never be its supreme message. There are other voices 
 which can preach industrial reform; but if the churches do 
 not preach the doctrine of the truth of God, it will be left 
 to those who are least fitted by character and learning to 
 attempt to answer the question which is the most impor- 
 tant in the world, and to which an answer is being de- 
 manded to-day with as great eagerness as at any time in 
 the history of the world. One has only to glance at a 
 Sunday newspaper to see how many are pretending to 
 give an answer. How gladly the world would respond if 
 the church had as definite a message as many of the The- 
 osophists are advertising their readiness to give! Let a 
 man of God lift up his voice in the pulpit and make it evi- 
 dent that he has something to reveal which he has learned 
 by personal experience to be true, and people will flock to 
 hear him, so anxious are they to learn about God. 
 
 Such a simplified creed as is sometimes asked for can- 
 not be the means of unity; it must be the result of unity. 
 Such a creed cannot be formulated till all the churches are 
 given an opportunity to bear witness to the truth as each 
 knows it. For one church to attempt to revise the Catho- 
 lic creeds would be an offense to all the others, and be a 
 fresh cause of disunion. But while no individual church 
 would undertake to revise the ancient creeds, might it not 
 be possible for some church — the Episcopal, for example — 
 to substitute some simpler form than one of the historic 
 creeds for use in its public worship. This would not be so 
 radical an act as might at first be supposed. The first 
 draft of the American Prayer-Book omitted the Nicene 
 Creed. The English bishops made its retention a sine qua 
 non for the consecration of Bishop White, and wished to 
 have the American Church retain the Athanasian Creed 
 as well. To the last, however, the Americans would not 
 agree, and there was a compromise. Would there have 
 been serious loss if the Nicene Creed had been omitted from 
 our services? I doubt it. Nor do I think we should lose 
 
DOCTRINE 193 
 
 if we were to have a section of our Prayer-Book devoted 
 to confessions of faith, to serve as milestones to mark the 
 road which the church has travelled. In such a creedal 
 section there would be — as at present — the Thirty-nine 
 Articles, showing the opinion of the Church of England on 
 the subjects of controversy with the Roman Catholic 
 Church in the sixteenth century; the Athanasian Creed, as 
 witnessing to the faith of the early French Church in its 
 conflict with the Saracens; the Nicene Creed, the protest 
 against Arianism; and the Apostles' Creed, the Roman 
 symbol in the dangerous times of the Gnostic heresy in the 
 second and third centuries. 
 
 If it be thought that a confession of faith is essential to 
 every public service, might we not find some simple confes- 
 sion which would serve the purpose better than a more 
 ancient creed? I would suggest that such a creed should 
 return to the ancient form, and instead of the singular per- 
 sonal pronoun which the Reformation compilers of the 
 book used as expressing the individuaFs faith, begin with 
 a proclamation of the corporate faith of the congregation. 
 What should we lose beyond the sentiment of antiquity 
 and the charm of archaic forms by the use of such a creed 
 as this? 
 
 "We believe in one God: the Father, the Author of 
 everlasting life; the Son Jesus Christ our Lord, our Re- 
 deemer; the Holy Spirit, our Sanctifier. 
 
 "And we pray God to keep us steadfast in this faith, 
 and that it may be not only confessed by our lips, but mani- 
 fested in our lives by a humble, holy, and obedient walking 
 before him." 
 
 Such a creed would assert our faith in the Holy Trinity, 
 and relieve us from the difficulties from which no ancient 
 formula can be entirely free. In this way, by the confes- 
 sion of a true faith, we might be given grace to acknowl- 
 edge the glory of the Eternal Trinity, that is, the three- 
 fold manifestation or shining forth of the one God who is 
 
194 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 spirit, and "in the power of that Divine Majesty to wor- 
 ship the Unity." * 
 
 But there is a question connected with creeds which 
 must not be overlooked, because it touches a deeper ques- 
 tion than any so far considered, and that is intellectual 
 integrity. It may be said, all that has been asserted as 
 to the essence of the creeds may be true, and that the doc- 
 trine of chief importance may be the Trinity of God in 
 Unity, but it must not be overlooked that this dogma is 
 
 * Since the above was written the whole question has been fully dis- 
 cussed in the "Modern Churchman's Conference" of 1921, a report of 
 which will be found in The Modern Churchman, September, 192 1. In 
 this report will be found several suggested creeds; one of these offered 
 by a layman, Douglas White, M.A., M.D., is as follows: 
 
 "I believe in God, the Father of all; 
 
 And in Jesus Christ, Revealer of God, and Saviour of men: 
 And in the Spirit of Holiness, which is the Spirit of God and of Jesus: 
 
 By which Spirit man is made divine: 
 I acknowledge the communion of all faithful people. 
 
 In beauty, goodness, and truth: 
 And I believe in the forgiveness of sins, the glory of righteousness, 
 
 The victory of love, and the life eternal." 
 
 Another, suggested by the Rev. R. J. Shires, rector of St. Andrew's, 
 La Tuque, Province of Quebec, Canada, is a declaration of purpose 
 rather than a statement of faith, but is worthy of serious consideration: 
 
 "That inasmuch as the real test of our Christianity is that our daily 
 conduct shall harmonize with the will of God, as declared by Jesus 
 Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, we therefore declare our 
 intention of working together in a Christian spirit with all who love 
 our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity: 
 
 "To improve and intensify our personal experience of God by the 
 regular and faithful use of every means of grace. 
 
 " To live in such a way that men everywhere shall be able to take note 
 of us that we have been with Jesus. 
 
 *'To follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit, who will lead us into all 
 truth. 
 
 "To promote harmonious relations with all men. 
 
 "To seek that unity which shall make us all one in Christ Jesus. 
 
 "To promote effective Christianity in the endeavor to make the 
 kingdoms of this world the kingdom of Our Lord and of his Christ." 
 — The Modern Churchman, November, 192 1. 
 
 When these two suggested creeds are compared, it will be seen that 
 the writers approach the problem from two different standpoints, 
 
DOCTRINE 195 
 
 embedded in a creed which contains statements about 
 other matters which those who recite the creed are sup- 
 posed to believe. Do they believe them ? The first ques- 
 tion is not, "Are these things true?" but "Do those who 
 say the creed believe them to be true ?" If they do, and 
 unquestionably the uneducated, simple-minded people 
 who constitute the vast majority in all the churches, do 
 believe, that is, assent to them, then no doubt the church 
 is justified in retaining the primitive form of creedal ex- 
 pression. But can those who do not believe these state- 
 ments, taken in their plain meaning, continue to assert 
 that they do believe them when they know in their hearts, 
 
 neither of which alone is entirely satisfactory. For while it is desirable 
 that there should be a statement of purpose, it is essential that there 
 should be a clear statement of the faith from which this purpose pro- 
 ceeds. We are in danger to-day of substituting emotion for thought, 
 and the great value of any creed consists in the recognition that the 
 intellect is an essential element in Christian character. This has been 
 well stated by Dr. Glover: 
 
 "When we compare the development of religion in Israel with the 
 course it took in the Graeco-Roman world, it seems a fair conclusion 
 from the experience of Israel that more is gained in the quest of the 
 knowledge of God along the line of thought and intellect than by the 
 line of cult and emotion. Emotion has its place; it may be doubtfully 
 true that some experience of facts is only reached by means of emotion; 
 but emotion seems a normal concomitant of the deepest experiences. 
 Thus emotion has to be cross-examined, its evidence has to be checked, 
 and its data corrected. Every man is born a metaphysician, and knows 
 that emotion and intuition are amenable to the court of experience, 
 and that experience can only be interpreted by reason; though not 
 every man will take the trouble to carry the process through. . . . 
 The Grseco-Roman world, depressed by long wars and ruined by the 
 loss of freedom, was in a hurry for spiritual peace; it swung off from the 
 philosophic school to the shrine, and before long it compelled the philos- 
 ophers to come and make their peace with the gods of taboo and magic." 
 — "Jesus in the Experience of Men," T. R. Glover, Student Christian 
 Movement, 1921, pp. 103-104. 
 
 Are not the churches to-day manifesting the same spirit of "hurry" 
 which is here said to have been characteristic of the churches of the 
 Graeco-Roman world? If so, it might be better to retain the ancient 
 formularies for the present, even though we recognize the difficulties in 
 so doing, rather than to attempt a hasty solution which might lead to 
 even greater disadvantages. 
 
196 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 and some of those who worship with them know, that they 
 no more believe them than they believe the sun moves 
 around the earth? No value of historic continuity or 
 aesthetic feeling will justify any man in continuing the 
 use of words in the worship of God who cannot declare 
 that he is worshipping God in truth. Men and women, 
 and above all the clergy, are obliged to use a subtlety which 
 would be condemned in the practical affairs of life, when 
 they say that they believe Jesus was bom in the way the 
 creed asserts or that he rose from the dead "taking again 
 his body, with flesh and bones," as the Fourth Article of 
 Rehgion declares, when, as a matter of fact, they believe 
 something very different. 
 
 This is a very serious charge and should not be ignored. 
 It is not always brought as a "railing accusation"; it is 
 rather a serious difficulty which should be dealt with con- 
 scientiously and frankly. 
 
 It arises, I am convinced, from a misunderstanding of 
 the purpose of the creeds. That purpose is to present to 
 the faithful a form of words in which is embodied the faith 
 of the church, and those who recite the creed are witnessing 
 to their unity in the faith which has been the banner of 
 the church from generation to generation. Had it never 
 been formulated and were the church to undertake its 
 formulation to-day, it would probably be expressed in the 
 scientific and philosophic and perhaps economic language 
 of the best thought of the day. In other words, it would 
 be expressed in the language which reflects the prevailing 
 opinions of the day in which we are living. Now, if one 
 could imagine one of the faithful who lived in the fourth 
 century returning to earth, he would find a creed formu- 
 lated to-day so different from the opinions with which he 
 had been familiar that it would be impossible for him to 
 repeat it intelligently or, as we say, ^^ex animoJ' But sup- 
 pose he finally made himself familiar with the prevailing 
 opinions of this age, and it was explained to him that the 
 
DOCTRINE 197 
 
 purpose of the creed was to express the faith of old in the 
 language of modem times, can we not believe that he would 
 find it possible to recite the modern creed though the opin- 
 ions were unfamiliar and even unbelievable, if by so doing 
 he could bear witness that the faith in which he had lived 
 in the days of old was identical with the faith which is 
 now stated in terms which he never would have employed 
 in the days of his flesh? 
 
 Something like this, it seems to me, is what we are called 
 upon to do when we recite the creed. It is the ancient 
 expression of sl faith which is the same "yesterday, to-day, 
 and forever." We know what the men of old were trying 
 to express; they were so convinced that Jesus was a super- 
 human person that they could not think — as probably 
 Paul and John did * — that he had come into this world 
 as the other children of God had come, and therefore they 
 said that "he was bom of a Virgin." They were so con- 
 vinced that no phantom had appeared and influenced their 
 lives that they said that "Jesus after his death declared 
 that he had flesh and bones." These were the necessary 
 forms which the expression of their faith took. But sup- 
 pose a man who lives in this day is convinced that in these 
 matters they were mistaken, is he debarred from using 
 the ancient words because the opinions of the former day 
 no longer satisfy him if he be firmly persuaded that his 
 faith in God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit is the same as 
 they held.^ Can such a one be accused of dishonesty if 
 he makes no pretense of accepting the current opinion 
 when he uses the ancient words to express the living faith ? 
 
 "Perhaps not," it may be said. "But inasmuch as so 
 much explanation is required and inasmuch as the plain 
 man identifies the spiritual conviction with the intellectual 
 opinion, why should we not abandon a form which leads 
 to such misunderstanding?" There is much to be said 
 in favor of so doing, but it might be found that the loss is 
 * Per contra see "Belief in God," by Bishop Gore, p. 275. 
 
198 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 greater than the gain. In the first place, it would require 
 the church to identify the faith with the current opinion 
 of this age. But who can assure us that this opinion will 
 not change in the next hundred years ? The Darwinian 
 theory of evolution was almost a matter of faith with scien- 
 tific men twenty-five years ago, but how greatly has it 
 been modified by later discoveries ! God is the unchang- 
 ing element in life, and the classic expression of the faith 
 in God may be taken as a symbol and intelligently used 
 rather than attempt to vary the expression with every 
 change in changing opinion. 
 
 We not unnaturally think that the difficulty is a modern 
 one. It is, as a matter of fact, very old. Those who in 
 our own church are most insistent upon the literal inter- 
 pretation of the creeds in the two articles which speak of 
 the Incarnation and the Resurrection of our Lord, have 
 forgotten that they have changed the interpretation of 
 other articles without any consciousness of dishonesty. 
 Who believes that the world was made in six days as the 
 Book of Genesis declares, which was unquestionably the 
 opinion of the framers of the Apostles' Creed ? No edu- 
 cated man to-day; but that was what practically every 
 one believed when the creed was set forth. Who thinks 
 of the dead arising from their graves, as our fathers 
 thought ? Who that has given any serious thought to the 
 matter can think that Raphael's picture of the ''Ascen- 
 sion" is the representation of a great cosmic fact? Who 
 now thinks that this earth is to come to an end in the way 
 the Epistle of Peter predicts, and that the Lord is to de- 
 scend, as Paul once thought, to inaugurate the reign of 
 the saints? All these are exploded opinions. Yet the 
 faith in the exaltation of the man who once was crowned 
 with thorns to be crowned with glory now; the standing 
 up of the living personality in a new life after death, and 
 the gradual spreading of the light of the Sun of Righteous- 
 ness till all ''the earth is filled with the knowledge of the 
 
DOCTRINE 199 
 
 Lord as the waters cover the sea"; the inheritance of the 
 earth, not by the violent, the men who delight in war, but 
 by the meek, the peacemakers — this is the faith of Chris- 
 tian men to-day as truly as when they expressed it in the 
 childlike language of a prescientific age. The creation 
 of the heavens and the earth is no less mysterious nor sub- 
 lime than the compiler of Genesis thought; it is infinitely 
 more mysterious and glorious when conceived as the effect 
 of that Being 
 
 "Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
 And the round ocean, and the living air, 
 And the blue sky, and in the mind of man: 
 A motion and a spirit, that impels 
 All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 
 And rolls through all things." 
 
 Opinions vary from age to age, but the faith remains 
 the same, and it is the living faith, and not the fleeting 
 opinion, to which we declare our adherence when we recite 
 the childlike words of the church. 
 
 We say "childlike" not in the spirit of pitying superior- 
 ity; we recognize that in the days to come, our thoughts 
 and words will seem childish to those whom the spirit of 
 truth has led more deeply into the mystery of Hfe than we 
 have yet penetrated; we use the word in deep affection 
 for those who knew so little and yet loved so much, and 
 because we would keep in that innocent and lovely com- 
 pany all the days of our hfe. But the only way in which 
 this can be done is by the use of the child^s language. The 
 child may be taught to speak as men speak, but it will be 
 a forced word. The elders in the family must speak the 
 language of the children until such time as the children 
 are able to speak as men. In this way only, in the family 
 life, are the hearts of the children turned to the fathers, 
 and the hearts of the fathers to the children. '' Mother, 
 where did the baby come from?" says the Uttle girl to 
 
200 THE CRISIS OF THE CHrjRCHES 
 
 her mother, and the mother does not try to instruct her 
 in the science of obstetrics, but answers in the way the 
 child's heart will respond to a great truth, and says: "It 
 came from God, my darling, and was brought by the holy 
 angels." Has the mother spoken the truth? The boy 
 says: "Father, at what time did the sun rise to-day?" 
 Does the father explain that the sun never rises, but that 
 the earth, turning on its axis, produces an optical illusion? 
 If so, he may produce a little Sandf ord or Merton or a little 
 Rollo, but the father will never by that method gain the 
 confidence of the child. If he answers that the sun rose 
 at such or such an hour, he tells the truth, for the truth is 
 that at that hour the light of the sun began to bathe the 
 earth and call men to their duties and their pleasures, and 
 later the child can learn the scientific explanation, but 
 never quite loses the ancient sense of the coming of the 
 light in the way the vast majority of the human race 
 had opined that it comes, and which is so embedded in 
 the child's consciousness that it must not be rudely eradi- 
 cated* 
 
 By such a use of the creeds we keep alive the conscious- 
 ness of the spiritual unity of the church. And this is not 
 
 * "Every revolution in the world- view has profoundly affected man- 
 kind in those aspects of life which depend upon reason. ... So far as 
 most of us are concerned the principle of relativity may seem a matter 
 of small importance, dealing with infinitesimals which in the ordinary 
 business of life are entirely inappreciable. It disturbs our general 
 scientific methods no more than the Copernican theory disturbed the 
 practical adjustments of the human mind. For mankind the sun con- 
 tinues to rise and set. We reckon the times and the seasons, as men 
 have always done, and will do, irrespective of any change which has 
 taken place, or may take place, in astronomical theory. Newton's 
 law of the inverse square will not cease to be a practical rule for engi- 
 neers and mechanicians for all economic projects, nor will it cease to 
 commend itself by its simplicity, if Einstein's formula comes to be 
 recognized as theoretically perfect. In religion, however, and in philos- 
 ophy — philosophy as it concerns mankind generally, and not as tech- 
 nical metaphysics or theory of knowledge — its effect will be profound 
 and far-reaching." — "The General Principle of Relativity," H. Wildon 
 Carr (Macmillan & Co.), p. 153. 
 
DOCTRINE 20I 
 
 a mere sentiment. It has a practical value. There are 
 multitudes of people who are still intellectually in the first 
 or the fourteenth century. The number whose thought 
 is purely in the twentieth is small. If, then, the church 
 is to have any common expression of faith, it must be in 
 the language and embodied in the opinions of those who 
 think as did those who lived in an earlier age, and find the 
 traditional language congenial. 
 
 I hope the foregoing may not seem trivial. It is only 
 an illustration drawn from the life of the family of a truth 
 which persists all through life and is the essential in all 
 social intercourse. It is illustrated in legal practice, based 
 on the common law, where the ancient forms are retained 
 and applied to conditions which could not have been fore- 
 seen. It is the cement of our political life. Lodge, in his 
 discriminating life of Webster, reminds us that Hayne 
 represented the original meaning of the Constitution, but 
 that Webster interpreted it not as the fathers had con- 
 ceived but as it had become under the influence of an ex- 
 panding Nationalism.* Its application is essential to the 
 retention of the early ideals of the republic. The Declara- 
 tion of Independence is our national creed. But can we 
 interpret it as Jefferson did ? Its significance has expanded. 
 The black man as well as the white is now dwelling under 
 the aegis of freedom. f What is more, it is seen to be not the 
 declaration of a fact but rather the expression of a sublime 
 hope. To say that all men are "born free and equal," as 
 the Declaration is frequently misquoted,! is not a fact. To 
 say, as the Declaration does, that all men were "created 
 free and equaP' is to announce the divine purpose which 
 has never been realized, but toward which we press in- 
 spired by a sublime hope. In the same way we say we be- 
 lieve in the catholic church, which has never been his- 
 
 * See " Daniel Webster, American Statesmen," Houghton Mifflin Co. 
 
 t Alas, only theoretically. 
 
 t Almost always in English books, from Thackeray to Dean Inge. 
 
202 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 torically realized, but is the goal of Christian endeavor. 
 The employment of ancient words in a new and larger 
 sense is not a new attempt to escape from the undesirable; 
 it is to continue in the path marked out by Paul, following 
 in the footsteps of Jesus. How can Paul say that the 
 church is the Israel of God? It is not true, if we insist 
 that words must always mean the same thing. It is true 
 if words are enriched by experience. When Jesus was 
 asked, "How say the scribes that Elias must first come?" 
 he answered in the words of the creed of the synagogue 
 in which he had been brought up: "Elias truly cometh 
 and restoreth all things. But I say unto you that Elias 
 has already come. Then understood they that he spake 
 unto them of John the Baptist." 
 
 Israel was the company with whom God was in 
 covenant. The Jews, according to Paul, had broken the 
 covenant, and the church, having succeeded to their privi- 
 lege, was now the true Israel. Elias, the scribes believed, 
 would come in the person of the old Tishbite, but Jesus 
 said he had come in the person of the heroic reformer who 
 bore witness in the face of a modern Ahab and Jezebel to 
 the kingdom of God. If the use of the creed is condemned 
 on the ground that it is immoral to use words except in 
 their original sense, and not as symbols of a truth which 
 has been emancipated from outgrown opinions, then both 
 Paul and Jesus must be condemned too. Indeed, we may 
 say that the whole Bible is lacking in intellectual veracity. 
 From Isaiah to Revelation there are innumerable illustra- 
 tions of spiritual development which have changed the 
 meaning of ancient conceptions. Only in this way has it 
 been possible to preserve the continuity of religious de- 
 velopment, and prevent each new prophet from anticipat- 
 ing the heresy of Marcion and the early Gnostics, which 
 insisted that each new truth compelled an abandonment 
 of past religious experience. But then who can escape? 
 Not many of those who object, for they are using the word 
 
DOCTRINE 203 
 
 "God" as if it had the same significance to-day as in the 
 days of old. Yet who can say that that significance is 
 true, or that any two men connote the same idea by the 
 familiar word? To the child God is visualized as a great 
 man; to the philosopher he is the spirit without form in 
 whom we live and move and have our being. No social 
 religious life is possible unless the learned and the wise 
 are willing to use the words of the simple and the child- 
 like, each having his own opinion and both united in a 
 sublime faith which no words can adequately express. 
 
 There is another objection to this view of the creeds 
 which, though it shows, as I think, a confusion of thought, 
 has a real meaning which should not be ignored. "The 
 creed," it is often said, "is a statement of facts, and there- 
 fore should not be dissolved into a mere theory of salva- 
 tion." But this will hardly bear examination. A "fact" 
 is something that is known, not something which is be- 
 lieved. If the creed is indeed a statement of facts, it is 
 not the expression of faith but of knowledge. Well, look 
 at the first article of the creed: "I believe in God the 
 Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth." Is that 
 the statement of a fact? Can it be proved? Is it sus- 
 ceptible of apprehension by the senses, or is it something 
 which some man beheld and has handed down to us as 
 other facts of history have been handed down? The uni- 
 verse is a fact. But the "creation" of it is believed by all 
 who believe in God. Is the "Resurrection of the body" a 
 fact, or the "life everlasting," or "the coming of Christ 
 to Judgment"? This objection will not bear examination. 
 What those who use such language mean to say is that 
 certain parts of the creed are statements of facts. This is 
 true. But if we ask what they are, it will be found that 
 they are statements concerning the earthly life of Jesus, 
 and it is most important that we should not suppose him 
 to be a myth but a veritable historical person. Ours is, 
 indeed, an historic religion. We may go further and say 
 
204 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 that it was this primarily which the fonnulators of the 
 creed had in mind to emphasize when they put forth the 
 creed. The danger was that the life oi Jesus should be 
 thought of as one of the many "mysteries" which were 
 appealing to the popular religious fancy in the second cen- 
 tury. Against this the creed protested. One form of 
 Gnosticism would have reduced Jesus to a phantom. It 
 was the reality of his manhood that the creed emphasized. 
 His divinity at that time needed no emphasis. It was be- 
 lieved, but in such a way as to make the Incarnation a 
 myth. If, then, we ask what are the ** facts'^ which the 
 creed lays emphasis upon, they are the birth of Jesus, his 
 sufferings and death under the rule of Rome, the reality 
 of his death and burial, and his resurrection from the dead. 
 Now side by side with these facts went a belief in the sig- 
 nificance of this life which made it different from every 
 other life. By his birth there had come into the world 
 the perfect man, the express image of the Father's person. 
 The Jew needed no miracle to convince him of this truth. 
 He had been brought up to expect the "seed of Abraham'^ 
 to bless the world. But the Greek had always insisted 
 that such a one must be the offspring of the gods. To them 
 the birth of the Saviour in the way it is described in two of 
 the Gospels was a necessity. But the faith of those who 
 believed the miracle and those who were indifferent to it 
 was one.* Both believed that through him we have re- 
 mission of sins. He who believes that believes what the 
 creed embodies in a form which may no longer appeal to 
 
 * "Certainly nothing concerning the birth of Jesus was part of that 
 assurance on the basis of which faith in Jesus was claimed. I may add 
 that it ought not to this day to form part of the basis of the claim. . . . 
 
 "I think that those who believe that the historical citadel can be 
 maintained should insist that the question of the birth is secondary 
 and not primary, viz.: that the question of faith in Jesus must rest 
 still, where it was made to rest from the beginning, on the life, teaching, 
 death, and resurrection of Jesus. On these, quite apart from any 
 questions concerning his birth, the faith stood and still could stand." — 
 "Belief in God," by Bishop Gore, pp. 274, 279-280. 
 
DOCTRINE 205 
 
 him, and to which he attaches little importance. The 
 framers of the creed believed that it was by Jesus* death 
 upon the cross that the sense of forgiveness had been 
 brought to the world, and were therefore content to leave 
 it with the simple statement of the *'fact." They believed 
 that they were as truly in communion with the Lord who 
 had been dead and was alive again as the disciples of Jesus 
 were. That this could be without his "resurrection/' that 
 is, his rehabilitation in the flesh, seemed to them impos- 
 sible. And because they believed this of Jesus they be- 
 lieved it of themselves. The two go together. It is to be 
 remembered that Greek philosophy had thrown but dim 
 light on the problem of personality, and the early Chris- 
 tians were unable to conceive of the perpetuation of full 
 personality dissociated from the body. Paul saw that and 
 said we shall be raised from the dead as Jesus was. He 
 attempted to meet this difficulty by declaring that a " spir- 
 itual'' body shall be the manifestation of the risen per- 
 sonality. The faith the church held we hold too. The 
 form in which the faith was expressed not a few believe 
 to be the temporary clothing of great truths. 
 
 The whole question has been well stated by a recent 
 writer who speaks with authority because he is at once a 
 scientific teacher and a devout Christian. "The question 
 is not whether it is honest to reinterpret old phrases in 
 new senses; that does not describe what is being done. It 
 is. May we frankly abandon some old phrases except as 
 historical; using them as what they truly are, mile-stones 
 on the path of knowledge of God; early intellectual forms 
 in which faith expressed itself, still of devotional value to 
 us all; but forms not intellectually binding on all men for- 
 ever, mile-stones we have left behind?"* 
 
 Those who, in the interests of the "faith once for all de- 
 
 ♦ "Christ's Thought of God," James W. Wilson, D.D. (Macmillan & 
 Co.), p. 87. The whole chapter should be read by those who wish to 
 see this question considered in a reverent and clear spirit. 
 
2o6 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 livered to the saints," insist upon the literal interpretation 
 of the creed may find that they have served neither the 
 cause of truth nor of the church. I could name not a few 
 devout men and women who are, I believe, in full accord 
 with the faith yet who, because of the wide-spread opinion 
 that the creed must be taken in a sense which is repugnant 
 to their reason, refuse to say it at all, and, because they 
 believe that the "church teaches'' that the acceptance of 
 the creed ^'ex animo'' is necessary to the reception of the 
 Sacrament, have for years failed to enjoy the full com- 
 munion of the church of which they are in truth devoted 
 members. 
 
 The defenders of the faith might do well to consider seri- 
 ously such words as these: "Creeds cannot be . . . abso- 
 lutely regulative of the church's faith. All that they can 
 do, as witnesses to the continuity of truth, is to demand 
 that the later doctrinal developments be not altogether out 
 of harmony with the spirit of the earlier. When anything 
 beyond this is claimed for them, as if they had the power 
 of stereotyping the form of belief, they are exalted to a 
 position which endangers the very truth they are sup- 
 posed to defend. It is vain, then, to hope that the time 
 will come when the church will only believe what is for- 
 mally tabulated in her confessions. Such a time can only 
 come when what is best in our theology is stifled by creeds, 
 and when all connection between theology and general 
 scientific culture has ceased." * 
 
 "Even when belief has not outgrown the formulas by 
 which it has been traditionally expressed, we must beware 
 of treating this fiixity of form as indicating complete iden- 
 tity of substance. Men do not necessarily believe exactly 
 the same thing because they express their convictions in 
 exactly the same phrases. And most fortunate it is in the 
 
 * "Schleiermacher: Werke," vol. V, pp. 440-441. Quoted in "Schleier- 
 macher," Robert Munroe. Paisley, Alexander Gardiner, 1903, pp. 
 104-105. 
 
DOCTRINE 207 
 
 interest of individual liberty, social co-operation, and in- 
 stitutional continuity that this latitude should be secured 
 to us, not by the policy of philosophers, statesmen, or di- 
 vines, but by the inevitable limitation of language." * 
 
 It may be well now to sum up in a word the conclusions 
 reached in these two chapters on "Doctrine." The funda- 
 mental doctrine of all the churches is the triune personality 
 of God. In the creeds there is the early expression of the 
 church's faith in the language with which their compilers 
 were familiar and in the atmosphere in which they lived 
 and breathed. These creeds cannot be used intelligently 
 in the twentieth century except by the application of the 
 same method which characterizes the writers of the Bible, 
 and, in modem days, the practice of the law, and in the 
 familiar family life. So used they may prove helpful and 
 prepare the way for a more modem expression of the un- 
 changing faith which will commend itself to the intelli- 
 gence and the moral purpose of the church of the future. 
 
 * "Theism and Humanism," Gifford Lectures, 1914, by Arthur 
 James Balfour. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 SACRAMENTARIANISM 
 
 However reasonable much of the foregoing may seem 
 to the average Christian, it will be strongly repudiated by 
 the Anglo-Catholic, and that for two reasons: In the first 
 place it contradicts his theory of revelation, and in the 
 second seems to ignore the value of the sacramental life. 
 Such an one, though far from wishing to deny that there 
 are many devout men and women to be found in all the 
 churches, or that these are, in a sense, disciples of Jesus, 
 nevertheless insists that all that can be concluded from 
 such a fact is that there are many individuals who are only 
 potential members of the Church of Christ, because so far 
 they have had no proper understanding of the church it- 
 self. Such seem to him like the young ruler in the Gospel, 
 who "was not far from the kingdom of God," yet certainly 
 not in it. Or he thinks of them as did Aquila and Priscilla 
 of Apollos; he cannot deny that they are gifted, but he 
 feels that he represents those v^ho are to "teach the way 
 of God more perfectly.'* Therefore he explains the divi- 
 sion of the churches by saying that "it is caused by the 
 ignorance of those who do not understand that the Church 
 of the Living God is supernatural and demands the vital 
 imity which would enable it to do the work for which it 
 was ordained. This Protestantism has never imderstood, 
 and so has failed to bear witness to the truth. It is impos- 
 sible that any convincing witness can be borne with author- 
 ity while the church is divided into a great number of 
 groups, each one of which pretends to speak with author- 
 ity. Their witnesses do not agree together. If the church 
 is to speak with authority, it must speak as one." 
 
 208 
 
SACRAMENTARIANISM 209 
 
 How these objectors reconcile such opinions with their 
 separation from the Church of Rome we need not now con- 
 sider. But it is important to call attention to one thing 
 that seems to have been overlooked, which is that if the 
 message of the church be not true, it will gain no authority 
 by being proclaimed by one body. The real question is: 
 Is the message of the church true ? Or to put it in another 
 way: Are the metaphysical theories and the prescientific 
 statements which the church has identified with the faith 
 the real message of the church ? The Anglo-Catholic seems 
 to affirm that they are, because he is obsessed by a theory 
 which has not been deduced from the facts. This theory 
 rests upon an assumption that truth was "given" in its 
 entirety centuries ago, and is incapable of increase, and 
 that having been once formulated it can never be restated. 
 But this is contrary to the teaching of Jesus, according to 
 John. The promise of Jesus was that the spirit would 
 lead into truth, more and more. Some truth, but not the 
 whole truth, was set forth by Jesus, and of that only a 
 part was apprehended by the first disciples: "I have yet 
 many things to tell you, but ye cannot bear them now, but 
 when the spirit of truth has come he will lead you into all 
 truth." That prophecy, we believe, has been justified by 
 the history of the church and is far from being exhausted. 
 The church is not worshipping an "unknown God." It 
 has learned, by the revelation of Jesus, something — and 
 that the essential — about God. It does not accept that 
 revelation on the external authority of Jesus alone — it be- 
 gins with that, but goes on to verify it by experience. 
 
 The primary work of the church, then, is to bear witness 
 to "the truth as it is in Jesus," and to test new truth by 
 the principles which he revealed. But to say that the 
 church has received all that it is ever to receive, while in 
 every other department of life progress is being made in 
 the knowledge of truth, is to admit that the church is dead. 
 If the great progress which has been made in the knowl- 
 
2IO THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 edge of this universe, of the human race and the psychol- 
 ogy of the individual be not paralleled by an equal ad- 
 vance in the knowledge of God, it leads to one of two con- 
 clusions, either of which would be fatal to the life of the 
 church. The first is that all this advance in knowledge 
 has come apart from the influence of the spirit of God — 
 that is, that all our education has been atheistic; or else 
 that there is one department of life — and that the most 
 important — ^where the spirit no longer leads, except back- 
 ward. The wide-spread scepticism on the part of many 
 educated men and women of the teaching of the church is 
 due, I believe, rather to this error than to any specific 
 attack upon the faith. The church needs to learn what 
 the "world" has already learned, that truth is a call to a 
 great adventure. It cannot be delivered once for all. The 
 church, like her Master, must slowly "increase in wisdom." 
 This does not imply that the statements of the past to 
 which the church has given a sanctity which in some quar- 
 ters seems greater than that ascribed to the words of Jesus 
 himself are without value; it only means that they should 
 not be supposed to be the final expression of truth. 
 
 The Catholic creeds are an important part of the church's 
 varied and rich inheritance, and should be held in reverent 
 esteem as one of the many attempts of the religious phil- 
 osophic mind to express the truth in a form which would 
 be intelligible to men who were seeking after God. As has 
 been well said, they are "mile-stones" in the church's 
 journey. But they fail of their purpose when they are 
 made termini. We ought to say of them, as we say of some 
 of the great scientific formulas which have been the start- 
 ing-point for new advance in knowledge, that they are 
 reverent hypotheses, which may in time be superseded 
 by a larger statement of truth. But to identify them with 
 the "faith," which is the spiritual activity of the soul of 
 man in communion with God, the only faith which can 
 remove mountains, is not to exalt truth but to belittle it, 
 
SACRAMENTARIANISM 2 1 1 
 
 and to drive men who are humbly seeking to know the 
 will of God into revolt against the church which should 
 be the home and the school of all God's children. It is 
 to turn the church from the witness to the divine life of 
 Jesus into a philosophic society, whose mission is to repeat 
 words but partially understood, like the Buddhist "Om 
 mani padni Om," as if they had some magic power. The 
 Catholic creeds should be an inspiration to a living faith, 
 because they are the witness to man's belief that the spirit 
 will lead into truth, and that that truth must in this day 
 be expressed in language which to the former days would 
 have seemed inadequate. How few of those who reverence 
 Athanasius appreciate that he was a great "radical," a 
 true "modernist"! 
 
 But so have been all the great teachers of the church 
 whose doctrines are relied upon by the obscurantist of 
 to-day. Such were Augustine and Anselm and Aquinas; 
 such were Luther and Calvin. "Cwr Deus homo?^' was 
 the one question they all tried to answer in the way their 
 age could understand. And this was what was to have 
 been expected from the disciples of him who was the most 
 profound radical the religious life has known. "Ye believe 
 in God," said Jesus; "now believe in me." How had they 
 believed in God? In the conventional way of their past 
 experience, and it was not vivifying. Jesus would have 
 them enter into that knowledge of truth which he had 
 learned by the things which he suffered. If they did that, 
 then God would be to them what he was to Jesus, and to 
 know God is to know the truth. Jesus knew nothing about 
 what we now call the "inmaanence of God," but he knew 
 much about the nearness of God. Not one poor little spar- 
 row fallen from the nest and dying of cold and hunger 
 perished without some sympathetic emotion on the part 
 of God. How much more was this true of those whom 
 Jesus called God's children ! The world is not asking to- 
 day so much ''Cur Deus homo?'' as "Does God care?" 
 
212 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 Does the church know that truth ? If so, it has a message 
 which the world is eager to hear. The creeds may express 
 in metaphysical language the method by which this truth 
 was made effective, but it is the truth which the world 
 asks for. To-day we think it can be better expressed in 
 the language of psychology,* but it is not the philosophical 
 expression which is of primary importance but the truth 
 of God's care. Has the individual soul eternal value? Or 
 does it, at the end, "slip like a dewdrop into the eternal 
 sea"? Jesus knew, and sent his messengers to tell that 
 truth to a discouraged world, and the world sprang to new 
 life. Is there an eternal home to which the soul may look 
 forward after the long wandering, where there will be par- 
 don and love, recognition and peace? Jesus was in no 
 doubt about it, and there were seen a "new heaven and a 
 new earth." How was this great work done? Was it by 
 creeds and councils? We know that it was revealed in 
 the lives of simple folk who received it and lived in it, and 
 so revealed it and convinced the world of the truth which 
 not the learned nor the wise but the simple were able to 
 understand. "Christianity rose and spread among men," 
 says Carlyle, "in the mystic deeps of man's soul, and was 
 spread by the * preaching of the word' by simple, altogether 
 natural and individual efforts; and flew, like hallowed 
 fire, from heart to heart, till all were purified and illumi- 
 nated by it." t 
 
 "Simple faith still shows the way 
 We lose by chart of creeds. '* 
 
 That the truth would be more effective if it were illus- 
 trated by the lives of "all who profess and call themselves 
 Christians" is undoubtedly true, but to suppose that this 
 would result from the corporate unity of the church is to 
 misread history. Whenever the church as a whole, or any 
 
 * I think this was first said by Archbishop Temple. 
 
 t Quoted by Glover in "Jesus in the Experience of Men." 
 
SACRAMENTARIANISM 213 
 
 part of the church, has claimed that it was the possessor 
 of the whole truth, there has followed a protest and a re- 
 volt from the organization which has been for the welfare 
 of the church at large. 
 
 The classic illustration of this is found in the Reforma- 
 tion of the sixteenth century. But it has been repeated 
 again and again since that day. The first effect was no 
 doubt to shake faith in a certain expression of truth, which 
 had been identified with truth itself, but that was a tem- 
 porary effect. The lasting gain was in driving men to the 
 heart of truth. We are seeing the same spirit at work to- 
 day, and if we have learned the lessons of the past, we 
 should see that what is needed to-day is not an insistence 
 upon a return to any ancient statement as of permanent 
 authority but rather to the manifestation of truth in life. 
 That this is being recognized is seen in the fact that not 
 a few ministers are losing interest in theology. Some are 
 turning to poetry and others to economics and, in the Angli- 
 can communion, there is a strong drift toward sacramen- 
 tarianism,* which many believe leads to a repudiation of 
 the religion of Jesus. 
 
 It is not possible for the uninitiated to appreciate the 
 appeal that sacramentarianism undoubtedly makes to 
 many intelligent and devout men. It is essentially an 
 esoteric doctrine, and can be understood only by the ini- 
 tiated. That it has profound effect upon character the 
 history of the Roman Catholic Church shows. It has 
 
 * "I remember very well, when I was eight or nine . . . reading a 
 book by a Protestant author — a Presbyterian, I think — entitled ' Father 
 Clement,' about the conversion of a Catholic priest to Protestantism. 
 . . . The book described confession and absolution, fasting, the Real 
 Presence, the devotion of the Three Hours, the use of incense, etc., and 
 I felt instinctively and at once that this sort of sacramental religion was 
 the religion for me." (" Belief in God," by Bishop Gore.) Why Bishop 
 Gore should have failed to find a home in the one church which has con- 
 sistently followed the sacramental religion, we need not consider. The 
 interesting point in this statement is that it is the heart of the Roman 
 Catholic religion in which he has found peace. 
 
214 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 proved a veritable refuge or " gourd ^' for multitudes of 
 mystics who ignore the intellectual difficulties of dogma 
 and the moral inconsistencies which have marred the life 
 of the church, but find in it a means of mystic communion 
 with God. The rationalist may be tempted to scorn it, 
 but it cannot be denied that one of the causes of the weak- 
 ness of Protestantism has been its intense intellectualism 
 and its lack of sympathy with mysticism, and as a result 
 it is in Protestant communities that the most modern form 
 of mysticism — Christian Science — ^makes the strongest ap- 
 peal, and that the most ancient form of mysticism — the- 
 osophy — is wide-spread in America. But this, I think, 
 may truthfully be said, that while mysticism is an essential 
 element in all religious experience, if it be not interpreted 
 by the understanding and manifested in ethical life, it will 
 be destructive of the truest communion of the soul with 
 God, and therefore lead to the abandonment of the religion 
 of Jesus. His appeal was primarily to conscience, the in- 
 nate consciousness of God. He asked his disciples to pass 
 judgment upon his message, that is, to exercise their in- 
 telligence, and the result of his influence was as has been 
 stated by one of the earliest of the postapostolic writers:* 
 "God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, 
 and of love, and of a sound mind." Paul knew the danger 
 of unintelligent mysticism which in its earliest form ap- 
 peared in the church in the "gift of tongues." He did 
 not deny that this gift had "signification," but he did say 
 that it tended to mystification: "He that speaketh in a 
 tongue speaketh not unto men but unto God, for no man 
 understandeth him. ... He speaketh mysteries. If he 
 pray in a tongue my spirit prayeth, but my understanding 
 is unfruitful. What is it then ? I will pray with the spirit, 
 and I will pray with the understanding also. ... I had 
 rather speak five words with my understanding . . . than 
 ten thousand words in a tongue." Sacramentarianism 
 * II Tim. 1:7. 
 
SACRAMENTARIANISM 215 
 
 would, I believe, be rebuked by Paul for the same reason 
 that he rebuked those who were identifying the "gift of 
 tongues" with the full manifestation of the spirit of God. 
 To assert that any material means are essential for the 
 manifestation of God to the human spirit is to become 
 "entangled again in the bondage from which Christ has 
 set us free." It has obscured the meaning of grace. In 
 the New Testament grace is not only a beautiful and com- 
 forting word, but it is also a simple and natural word; it 
 means help. The early Protestant teachers wrote tomes 
 upon grace, but who reads them to-day? They identified 
 grace with the mysterious effect of the atonement, but the 
 sacramentarian is confusing it with the material which is 
 the sign of a spiritual gift. Consequently the highest grace 
 is impossible to those who do not receive the material sym- 
 bol, but is this a fact or a theory? Sacraments are indeed 
 means of grace because they are "outward and visible 
 signs" of God's love, but the material symbol cannot be 
 the channel of grace nor essential for the communion of 
 the soul with God. That sacramentarianism is a comfort- 
 ing and attractive religion cannot be denied, but its identi- 
 fication with the religion to which Jesus called his disciples 
 is without historical warrant. 
 
 Not a few who have learned the impotence of the sacra- 
 mental theory as it has been proclaimed by the Roman 
 Catholic Church and have repudiated it, nevertheless are 
 interested in tracing its influence upon the early church 
 through the "mystery" religions, which were coming in 
 from the East at the time when Paul was preaching. This 
 is not the place for a discussion of the mystery religions, 
 even if I were competent to undertake it. But it may not 
 be out of place to call attention to the fact that those who 
 think that modem scholarship is showing a current toward 
 a view of sacramentarianism which would prove that Paul 
 and John, under the influence of Mithras and Isis, were 
 laying the foundation of a "magic" religion, may find that 
 
2i6 THE CRISIS OP THE CHURCHES 
 
 in escaping from the Scylla of a "naturaKstic" theology 
 they will be shipwrecked upon the Charybdis which will 
 reduce Jesus to the phantom of Isis and Mithras. Already 
 we hear voices proclaiming that Jesus had no historical 
 existence, that he was invented as a rival to one of the 
 many "redeemers" who were making their appeal to the 
 superstition of the second century. The church has been 
 so busy in flogging the dead body of Arius that it has 
 failed to see the shadow of a more subtle enemy, Apolli- 
 narius. Unless the church can plant its feet firmly on the 
 rock of the historicity of Jesus, it can speak with no author- 
 ity. The world is not eager to hear about a deluded Jesus 
 of eschatology nor of a rival myth, but it would respond 
 to the Sermon on the Mount and the pure ethical teaching 
 of him who spake as never man spake. There is a modem 
 form of Docetism which "spiritualism" cannot combat 
 nor sacramentarianism popularize. 
 
 The Anglo-Catholic sacramentarian can derive no com- 
 fort from the teachiags of the "modernist" sacramentarian, 
 for if modern scholarship should succeed in showing that 
 the sacramental theory was introduced into the Christian 
 church by Paul and glorified by John, nothing would have 
 been done to link it up with the teachings of Jesus. On 
 the contrary, it would simply prove that just as Paul in 
 certain of his epistles had never succeeded in ridding him- 
 self of the dogmatism of the Rabbinic school, so he had 
 fallen under the influence of heathen teachers and at- 
 tempted to adjust the gospel of Jesus to the mystery reli- 
 gions, and, therefore, the breach between Jesus and Paul 
 would be complete. The Anglo-Catholic sacramentarian 
 believes that his theory of the sacraments was not borrowed 
 from the mystic religions, but represents the teaching of 
 Christ himself. Therefore any expectation on the part of 
 the modernist that he will appeal to the Anglo-Catholic 
 by trying to show an early origin of the sacramentarian 
 theory, so far from conciliating, will embitter. To the 
 
SACRAMENTARIANISM 217 
 
 Anglo-Catholics the church is not primarily a philosophic 
 school; rather, it is a means of salvation. They accept the 
 theology of the past because it is believed to be the revela- 
 tion to the church of the truth of God. Some of them 
 seem neither to examine nor understand it, but simply 
 accept it. The only thing which differentiates them from 
 Roman Catholics is that they do not accept the supremacy 
 of the pope, though they are willing to admit that he ought 
 to be granted a ** primacy." 
 
 One of the effects of a more eflScient co-operation among 
 the Protestant churches would unquestionably lead such 
 men to cast off this remnant of Protestantism and find 
 solace in the church with which they are really at one. 
 But as long as they remain in the Protestant church they 
 will be an alien element and hinder the unity which they 
 believe they desire. They have the advantage of being 
 able to state their theory of salvation in terms which can 
 easily be understood. They read the words — as they be- 
 lieve, of our Saviour himself — ^in John's Gospel: "Except 
 ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, ye 
 have no life in you." "Can anything be clearer," they 
 say, "than that this refers to the Eucharist ? Then it must 
 follow that if any man fails to partake of that sacrament, 
 there can be no life in him — ^he is spiritually dead. What, 
 then, can be more important in Christian practice than 
 the means to spiritual life ? And how can that sacrament 
 be celebrated except by those whom the Lord himself ap- 
 pointed for that purpose?" They do not deny that the 
 Lord's Supper as administered in the Protestant churches 
 is a religious rite; they only deny that it is a life-giving 
 sacrament. "If all that Christ wished 'on the same night 
 in which he was betrayed' was that he be remembered in a 
 simple love-feast, or, like a dinner of a club, as a sign of 
 good fellowship, then any one chosen by the club might 
 properly be appointed to preside at such a function. But 
 if it be a sacrament, ordained by Christ himself and neces- 
 
2i8 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 sary for spiritual life, it is of the first importance that 
 there should be a priest ordained by those who had been 
 authorized by Christ to administer it. Such are they and 
 only they who have been ordained by those who can trace 
 their authority back to the very men who sat at the table 
 with Christ and heard him say: 'This is my Body; this is 
 my Blood.' Those who have that authority are the 
 bishops of the Catholic Church, whose ministry derives 
 from Christ himself." 
 
 The theory is without a flaw unless it be in the assump- 
 tion on which it rests, and, that having been already con- 
 sidered in that chapter which treats of the ministry, need 
 not be repeated. As long as it is discussed as a theory, 
 there is no probability that any agreement will be reached 
 on it. There is, however, another way of testing it than 
 by argument, and that is by the application of the scien- 
 tific method. Does it explain the facts of life ? Are those 
 who fail to receive the sacrament in the way which to the 
 sacramentarian seems essential, with or without the evi- 
 dences of spiritual life ? If they are not without the evi- 
 dences of spiritual life, what shall we say of the theory, 
 and if they are, why can they not see their loss and begin 
 a new life ? I suppose the answer to the second question 
 is that most religious men and women who have grown up 
 in some church which holds no such theory of spiritual life 
 are convinced that not only are the premises on which the 
 theory is based unsound, but that if they were true, it 
 would not be the religion of Jesus to which they were in- 
 vited, but to some other reKgion which is entirely opposed 
 to all that they believe he taught. For when it is exam- 
 ined, what does this sacramentarianism mean but a reli- 
 gion of magic? A spiritual effect is to be produced by 
 material means. The miracle can be wrought by a man 
 who is without the first evidence of the spirit of Christ. 
 It may be received by a man who is living in open sin. It 
 is true that in the latter case he may receive it to his 
 
SACRAMENTARIANISM 219 
 
 "damnation," but the fact remains that the body and 
 blood of him who said, "Not that which goeth into the 
 man defiles him, but that which cometh out of his heart," 
 is believed to be received by the mouth. But if the teach- 
 ing of Jesus be true, that no material thing can corrupt 
 man's spiritual nature, it must be equally true that no 
 material thing can spiritualize him. If it be answered that 
 it is not a material thing but a spiritual thing which is re- 
 ceived, then the doctrine of Transubstantiation must be 
 true. But we are justified in asserting that Jesus' teach- 
 ing leads to the conviction that no spiritual life can be so 
 incorporated into a material thing as to enter into man's 
 spirit, except by magic. 
 
 It does not follow from this that the sacraments are 
 without value, or that it would not have been better had 
 the Protestant churches laid more emphasis upon them 
 than they have done. They are means of grace, but not 
 necessarily for the reason that is often supposed. Each 
 morning there passes my door a stream of men and women 
 and little children on their way to mass.* I do not be- 
 lieve that would continue year after year if the participants 
 did not derive some conscious benefit from the sacred 
 ofiice. I think I can understand something of that influ- 
 ence by an experience which I had many years ago. I 
 was in Milan, on St. Mark's Day, and had in mind to 
 attend high mass at the great cathedral. I was late in 
 arriving, and the office had proceeded to the part in the 
 service where the incense in great clouds filled the sanc- 
 tuary and began to float out into the choir and nave. At 
 that moment, about twenty feet about the pavement, on 
 the great pillar which supports the crossing on the south 
 side, I saw the face of Christ! As clearly as I see the 
 paper on which I now write, I saw the traditional face of 
 the Man of Sorrows. The vision lasted several minutes, 
 and when the choir sang, "Benedictus qui venit in nomine 
 * This was written at Pointe ^ Pic, in the Province of Quebec, 
 
220 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 Domini/' I understood something of the power of the mass. 
 Every devout soul in the vast minster felt that Christ had 
 come to them; they too saw his face and were blessed. 
 The explanation of my own "vision" came to me later 
 when I considered the experience. I had been for over an 
 hour gazing at Leonardo's "Last Supper/' till the face of 
 the Saviour had been photographed on the retina of the 
 eye. When I entered the dim cathedral and the incense 
 filled the temple, blotting out the more evident things of 
 sight, the photograph was reflected on the pillar, as if it 
 had come there of itself. It was an illusion; but it was 
 full of comfort. I believe this is true of the mass. It 
 too is an illusion. Christ does not "come" when the 
 priest pronounces the sacred words. He is there. He is 
 in them "the hope of glory" and does not "come." They 
 become conscious of the Presence which the "world" ob- 
 scures, and are comforted for the struggle with poverty 
 and pain and death. But the way in which the mass is 
 expounded leads to a belief in magic, and has its roots in 
 an ancient animism in which the "eating of the flesh and 
 drinking of the blood" of the god is the supreme rite. 
 From this early superstition the ignorant are less free than 
 perhaps we sometimes suppose. We are now in a position 
 to understand how sacramentarianism cannot exist apart 
 from sacerdotalism; magic requires a magician. But this 
 is not a Christian doctrine. Sacramentarianism and sacer- 
 dotalism both existed side by side centuries before the 
 coming of Christ, and the effects then produced have re- 
 peated themselves again and again in the long history of 
 the church.* But this does not mean that the mass has 
 no modem value. It goes down to the root of our religious 
 
 * "Though your good works," says the interested (Persian) prophet, 
 "exceed in number the leaves of the trees, or the sands on the seashore, 
 they will be unprofitable to you, unless they are accepted by the 
 destour, or priest. To obtain the acceptance of this guide to salvation, 
 you must faithfully pay him tithes of all you possess. ... If the 
 
SACRAMENTARIANISM 221 
 
 nature. Just as the creeds are a relic of anthropomor- 
 phism, so is the mass, and, to a less extent, the communion, 
 a relic of animism. 
 
 Protestantism purified that early illusion by the doctrine 
 of sacraments, which are means of grace, that is, helpful. 
 The illusion is that the grace, or help, resides in the mate- 
 rial which witnesses to it, instead of being a sign or symbol 
 of that help. Life then becomes full of sacraments. My 
 friend sends me a book or a poem, or even only a flower. 
 It is a sacrament of his friendship. What do I need of 
 that if I have my friend's friendship ? It is a foolish ques- 
 tion. I may have forgotten my friend, differences of 
 opinion may have arisen between us, and I may have be- 
 come suspicious of his true friendship, and then comes his 
 gift! I know then that he has not forgotten me; I recall 
 all the gracious acts of the past; my love for my friend 
 is deepened by the sacrament which I have received. 
 But if we analyze the experience a little further, we shall 
 find that the essence of the experience is remembrance. 
 The Catholic reproaches the Protestant with making the 
 sacrament a mere remembrance. If he makes it a remem- 
 brance, he has used it as it was intended to be used. I 
 remember my friend. That is all that is needed. If I 
 remember my Saviour, it is enough. For remembrance is 
 not exhausted by the recalling of a past event. It is a 
 means of realizing his presence now. No doubt Protes- 
 tantism has been too prone to limit the remembrance of 
 Jesus to the Last Supper, and thereby has failed to experi- 
 ence that joy which the constant remembrance of his pres- 
 ence should bring to all who partake of the Lord's Supper 
 as communing with one who is not far from us. He does 
 
 destour be satisfied, your soul will escape hell tortures; you will secure 
 praise in this world and happiness in the next." — Gibbon's "Decline 
 and Fall of the Roman Empire," chap. VIII. 
 
 This is the true meaning of sacerdotalism, and it continues to be a 
 power to this day. 
 
222 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 not come to us. We come to him, whenever we remember 
 what he is. Such thoughts as these would bring a unity in 
 communion which the scholastic theories of ** substance 
 and accidents " have broken into bitterness of spirit where 
 there should be love. 
 
 I have said that the Roman Catholic Church is the 
 greatest sect known to history. Must we not add that 
 the nearer the Anglican comanunion comes to the theories 
 of that church the more sectarian it must become? Cer- 
 tainly that is what many Protestants of other churches be- 
 lieve. It must be so, not because the individual members 
 of the Roman or Anglican communion are essentially 
 blameworthy, but because their theories compel them to 
 regard their brethren of other churches as if they were dis- 
 pleasing to Christ. The Roman Church is able to show a 
 larger charity because it covers many sins with the mantle 
 of "invincible ignorance," but we Protestants are debarred 
 from that comfortable doctrine by a feeling of shame, lest 
 we boast. The world cannot be divided into the two cate- 
 gories of knave and fool. Anglicans cannot pretend that 
 those of other churches have not had the same advantages 
 as themselves, and so there comes unwillingly a certain 
 contempt for those who follow not with them. 
 
 Come back to the question with which we began: "How 
 is it possible that those churches which are without a 
 'valid' ministry and life-giving sacraments can have the 
 life of the Son of Man? '' Well, the point is they have ! 
 
 It is pathetic to see the difficulties in which good men 
 are involved because of a preconceived theory. A good 
 and learned bishop, known to me personally, and one for 
 whose character I had high regard, was elected to a diocese 
 where his church had never made much headway, but 
 where for many years the religion of Christ had been fol- 
 lowed as well as elsewhere. He began his ministry in this 
 new field by writing a letter to the clergy of the diocese — 
 which letter was, of course, published in the newspapers 
 
SACRAMENTARIANISM 223 
 
 with startling head-lines. In this letter he said that he 
 hoped to establish a church in every town where at last the 
 gospel of Christ should be preached. Not long after I was 
 in conversation with a friend, the Congregational minister 
 in one of those towns, and he asked me what I thought of 
 the letter. I wished to be loyal to a minister of my own 
 church and tried to change the subject with some trivial 
 remark. But he would have none of it. He felt that an 
 awful wrong had been done, not to his own church alone, 
 but to the church universal, and he said: "This old white 
 meeting-house has stood here for over two hundred years. 
 Here children have been baptized, the young have been 
 joined together in matrimony, the converted have been 
 brought to the Lord's Table, the dead have been buried, 
 and yet in all these two hundred years it seems that the 
 gospel of Christ has not been preached! Well, in God's 
 name, what has been preached?" 
 
 The bishop was not the heartless man my friend sup- 
 posed; it was simply that he had identified the "gospel of 
 Christ" with a theory of sacramentarianism. Had he had 
 the mind of Paul, he would have said that the gospel had 
 been preached, but that certain aspects of the religious life 
 had not been emphasized. That it had been preached and 
 would continue to be preached should have filled his heart 
 with joy. Paul could not have written as he did about 
 those who preached Christ "for envy and strife" and said 
 that even so he rejoiced, had he identified the gospel with 
 one aspect of the gospel. 
 
 There is another aspect of sacramentarianism to which 
 it is painful to call attention, and yet, without so doing, 
 its danger cannot be appreciated. The Protestant would 
 gladly admit that the devout Catholic, in assisting at the 
 mass, does enter into mystic communion with God, not 
 because his theory of magic brings God to him, but be- 
 cause God is seeking him as Jesus sought for the Samar- 
 itans who worshipped on Mount Gerizim. Nor would 
 
224 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 the Protestant deny the evident fact that devout men and 
 women in the Anglican communion whose custom it is to 
 participate frequently in the Lord's Supper receive a 
 spiritual benefit, even though their thought as to the way 
 in which the blessing comes is confused. Self-examina- 
 tion, confession of failure, prayer for pardon, and the re- 
 membrance of Christ's presence lead to peace of mind and 
 renewed spiritual life. But, on the other hand, is not the 
 Protestant right in saying that sacramental religion, with 
 its "confession and absolution, fasting, the Real Presence, 
 the devotion of the Three Hours, the use of incense, etc.," 
 is essentially a mechanical religion, and is deadening to the 
 conscience unless that be quickened by communion with 
 God which has no necessary connection with these me- 
 chanical acts ? While it is true that no church nor school 
 of thought in any church is altogether free from unworthy 
 members, has not sacramental religion more such than any 
 other form of Christian religion; or, at least, are not the 
 imworthy members in that more conspicuous, and, con- 
 sequently, their lives more scandalous? The fact is too 
 well known to require illustration by particular instances 
 that in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Anglican 
 communion there is a disproportionately large number of 
 worldly men and women who are scrupulous in mechanical 
 devotion but worldly in life. Who has not known men 
 and women brought up in the strictest "sect" of that re- 
 ligion suddenly abandoning it all, and yet without such 
 knowledge of Christ as would enable them to find a home 
 in any other group of his disciples? The most astonishing 
 thing is that frequently such a revulsion leads not to god- 
 lessness but to a more serious and earnest life, though a 
 life separated from the communion of the church. I say 
 it is astonishing, but only to those who have not analyzed 
 the content of sacramentarianism. It is a mechanical 
 religion and can be practised by the body without any 
 enduring influence upon the spirit. 
 
SACRAMENTARIANISM 225 
 
 How little mention there is in Paul's Epistles of sacra- 
 ments! How little, apart from the sixth chapter — and 
 learned men have never been able to agree whether this 
 referred to the Eucharist or not — ^is there in the Fourth 
 Gospel about ecclesiastical sacraments, though it is full 
 from beginning to end of the sacraments of life! Both 
 Paul and John laid great emphasis upon faith and the power 
 of the word. That is what the Protestant churches have 
 done. If the Anglican communion has any message to 
 the world, it must begin by acknowledging with joy this 
 work of the other churches of the Reformation. It is of 
 slight importance that the churches should be united into 
 one visible body. The important thing is that each of 
 them should receive from the others that which each in- 
 dividually has failed to value. In order that this may be 
 done it is essential that there should be a truer fellowship 
 among the churches, and, if that fellowship could be at- 
 tained, then we might see the churches the living power 
 which at present they are not. 
 
 It may be objected that the foregoing criticism of sacra- 
 mentarian mysticism should have been accompanied by 
 a criticism of the hard rationalistic spirit of Protestantism. 
 That such a spirit did animate the Protestant churches 
 for centuries cannot be denied, but it is evident that it is 
 no longer the prevailing spirit in Protestant churches. 
 Nevertheless, the objection is not without force and it 
 should be frankly admitted that Protestantism would have 
 been enriched if it had listened more attentively than it 
 has done to its great mystic teachers. There probably 
 can never be universal agreement on such a subject as 
 this because men's thoughts are moulded by their tem- 
 peraments. Nevertheless, I believe that not by theology 
 but by psychology a path is being shown which may lead 
 to a deeper unity of spirit than has been possible in the 
 past. The importance of the subconscious has been em- 
 phasized in our day as never before; perhaps it has been 
 
226 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 oveTemphasized. Certainly it has been too much identi- 
 fied with the abnormal. I believe that the truth in the 
 sacramental religion which has persisted through all these 
 ages and makes an appeal to saintly souls is that it is bear- 
 ing witness to the fact that God's grace not only more 
 widely abounds than sin but also more widely abounds 
 than thought. How God's spirit influences man apart 
 from his self-consciousness is one of the mysteries of life 
 and probably can never be explained. It is well that this 
 great truth should be borne in mind, but it is not well that 
 the influence of God's spirit upon the unconscious mind 
 should be identified with any rite or ceremony. "The 
 wind bloweth where it listeth." The doctrine of baptismal 
 regeneration witnesses to a great truth, which is that God's 
 spirit is an essential part of the life of every human being 
 long before the soul becomes conscious of that presence, 
 but to assert that that influence begins at the moment 
 when a priest sprinkles the head of the unconscious child 
 with water which has been consecrated, turns the truth 
 into a dreadful error. And what is true of the beginning 
 is true all through life. God's spirit is influencing us, "pre- 
 venting" us — ^in the words of the Prayer-Book — ^long be- 
 fore we become conscious of his grace; but to say that 
 that unconscious influence begins at the moment when the 
 priest consecrates the bread and wine is again to obscure 
 a divine truth by a "magic" rite. 
 
 Any church which makes dogma the sine qua non of 
 membership is in danger of becoming a philosophical school 
 having no message for the "man in the street." Any 
 church which exalts sacraments till they become the ex- 
 clusive means of grace is in danger of sinking back into 
 the magic-worship against which I believe a careful study 
 of the New Testament will show that both Paul and John 
 uttered an emphatic protest. Any church which thinks 
 its mission is fulfilled when it has ministered to those who 
 find themselves comfortable in its congenial surroundings 
 
SACRAMENTARIANISM 227 
 
 is in danger of becoming a religious club, and can make 
 no appeal to those who are looking for the kingdom of 
 God. 
 
 If, then, neither a philosophical school nor an esoteric 
 society nor a religious dub can do the work of Jesus, 
 what church can do his work and save the world ? It will 
 be the church composed of the men and women and chil- 
 dren in every denomination who are filled with the spirit 
 of Jesus, and believe that that spirit will manifest itself 
 more and more in the days to come; who believe that spirit 
 cannot be confined to that body to which they are attached, 
 or that its work is accomplished when individuals have 
 been "converted," and thereby their salvation assured; 
 but that the sanctification of the individual which must 
 be the first work of the church is only preliminary to that 
 ideal social order which will manifest itself in family, in- 
 dustrial, and political life, and will radiate until the na- 
 tions of the world acknowledge Christ as Lord and King. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 FELLOWSHIP 
 
 It may not be amiss, before finishing this study which 
 we have called "The Crisis of the Churches," to review 
 the path which we have followed. For it may seem as if 
 there were a lack of unity in the treatment of the theme, 
 though that, I hope, may be more apparent than real. In 
 the Introduction there was an interpretation of an ancient 
 parable — a parable which we believe has a profound signif- 
 icance for this day. It was suggested that the modern 
 church, like Jonah, has received a great revelation, the 
 revelation of God^s goodness to all mankind. If that reve- 
 lation be not received by the church and acted upon, it 
 will lead to the spirit of sectarianism, which would rest 
 satisfied with its own "gourd,'' indifferent to the welfare 
 of the world. This spirit would lead to the destruction of 
 the modem church as it led to the destruction of the church 
 of Israel. 
 
 We then saw the attraction which the greatest of all 
 churches has for many minds, but found that church also 
 dominated by the spirit of sectarianism. We considered 
 the philosophical doctrine of organic unity, and the various 
 attempts to produce church unity, one failing because it 
 identified the message of the church with the theory of 
 the sacraments, which leads inevitably to magic and to 
 sacerdotalism, the dominance of a caste. Such a church 
 can never be the leader of democracy. We thought also 
 of the superficial plans which seem to ignore the principles 
 for which the various churches stand. 
 
 We then turned aside, as it may have seemed to some, 
 to emphasize the value which we believe the Episcopal 
 
 228 
 
FELLOWSHIP 229 
 
 Church has for the church of the future, and suggested 
 that spiritual unity could be attained only by the recog- 
 nition of the intrinsic value in each of the churches, which 
 value can be interpreted only by those who have known 
 the privilege and blessing of the particular church of which 
 they are members. I know of no book which has so ap- 
 proached the subject since the appearance of Maurice^s 
 ''Kingdom of God," but it cannot be denied that that il- 
 luminating book was the plea of an advocate who was 
 convinced that the English Church not only had its own 
 peculiar value but also provided a full recognition of the 
 value of other churches. But much water has flowed under 
 the bridge since the time of the great prophet Frederick 
 Maurice. The story of the kingdom of God cannot be 
 written by one hand, it will need the co-operation of rep- 
 resentatives of all the churches, and the church of the fu- 
 ture cannot be identified with any of the modem churches 
 — ^neither with the great cosmopolitan imperiahsm of Rome 
 nor with the constitutional comprehensiveness of the Angli- 
 can communion. But, in order that that story, when it 
 shall have been written, shall be received by Christian 
 men and women as the inspiration of a more glorious con- 
 ception of the meaning of the "blessed company of all 
 faithful people," it is necessary that we should realize the 
 underl)dng spiritual unity which never has been broken, 
 and caimot be broken as long as Jesus Christ is acknowl- 
 edged as Lord of all. 
 
 The first effect of this conception of Christian imity 
 would lead to fellowship, the sense of brotherhood, and the 
 co-operation of all the disciples of Jesus for the salvation 
 of the world and the spiritualizing of civilization. The 
 underlying cause of the failure of the modem church to 
 fulfil the task and mission committed to it by its Divine 
 Master is due, I believe, to the fact that fellowship has 
 not been the goal which it has sought to attain. It has 
 been led to magnify the importance of mechanical unity, 
 
230 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 forgetting that mere juxtaposition does not necessarily 
 lead to unity, but, on the contrary, may frustrate it. This 
 we see in those unhappy families where brethren are com- 
 pelled to dwell imder one roof long after they have begun 
 to show different gifts which they are unable to develop 
 in the atmosphere of the old homestead. The result is 
 not unity but bickering and hatred. Only when each mem- 
 ber has been able to establish his own home with congenial 
 souls is there peace and joy. So only can true fellowship 
 be attained between the different families of the common 
 stock. But if such fellowship could be attained, it would 
 follow that there would be a better understanding of the 
 reason for the separations and a mutual respect which 
 might lead to hopeful co-operation. 
 
 Fellowship is like a purifying stream fed from the hills 
 above. But, as it descends to the plain below, there is dan- 
 ger lest it lose its power through spreading over the plain 
 and so becoming a swamp. To accomplish efficient work 
 it must be banked in. Fellowship may degenerate into 
 mere sentimentality and so lose its force. There are two 
 great emotions which will act as banks to the stream and 
 conserve its power; the one is fear and the other love. 
 The power of the former is seen in some great crisis like a 
 shipwreck. Then the girl who had looked down with in- 
 difference or contempt on the poor third-class passenger 
 will stretch forth her hands in hopes of his aid in the time 
 of need. And he, in turn, who may have cursed her for 
 her wealth and luxury, will now, when the end seems near, 
 rescue her. Those who had held aloof from one another 
 in the prosperous days of the summer voyage will be drawn 
 together by the force of a common fear. So would Chris- 
 tian men and women be if they were to face the facts of 
 life and consider what may be the end of our present in- 
 difference to one another. I have already spoken of the 
 danger that confronts Protestantism in our own land by 
 the domination of the Roman Catholic Church. But how 
 
FELLOWSHIP 231 
 
 much greater is the danger of a revival of paganism ! For 
 when we speak of materialism we really mean paganism. 
 Back of all the allurements of material things is a spiritual 
 need which must in some way be satisfied. It will attempt 
 to find satisfaction in one of the many forms of superstition 
 which we supposed science had made unbelievable. But 
 man has longings of which science knows nothing. If the 
 soul of man turns from a reasonable or spiritual religion, 
 it will take to table-rappings, to consulting of wizards, or 
 to some other form of magic; so dreadful is the loneliness 
 of a soul without any spiritual communion with life greater 
 than its own ! There is need of full fellowship among those 
 who are followers of Jesus if effective witness is to be borne 
 to the power of the gospel. 
 
 But fear alone will not suffice; there is need of a nobler 
 emotion, which is love. So John felt when he wrote that 
 if we had fellowship, the "blood of Jesus Christ would 
 cleanse us from all sin." No doubt the words have become 
 so associated with certain theories of the dogma of the 
 atonement that they fail to move us as they moved those 
 who first heard them. But surely the underlying thought 
 should not be hard for us to grasp. It is the thought of 
 gratitude to a redeemer. Think of men taken captive in the 
 days when John wrote, or think of those taken captive in the 
 late war; we may imagine three of them, differing in tem- 
 perament, education, and material advantages. But their 
 fate is the same. To them comes one who, at the risk of 
 his life, sets them free. They come forth from their dun- 
 geon and start on the way home. They know that he who 
 set them free has died. He died for them; he paid for their 
 freedom with his blood, he redeemed them; they are now 
 his, and must devote their lives to the work which he had 
 most at heart. Their temperamental differences will not 
 have been changed by this great experience, but they will 
 know that they were redeemed because he who died for 
 them loved each of them for himself as he was. Their 
 
232 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 differences will not divide them; they will be bound to- 
 gether by the memory of what he has done for them. 
 
 Is there need to amplify the thought? It should be the 
 prevailing thought whenever Christians think of one an- 
 other. And if that were the prevailing thought, there 
 would inevitably be fellowship. 
 
 Fear — and who can fail to fear who sees the signs of the 
 times? — and love — and who can fail to love who remem- 
 bers what it has cost to redeem his soul? — will lead to 
 co-operation, that the work of the Saviour may be accom- 
 plished. 
 
 Such thoughts go to the root of the matter, and could 
 we continue in that mood, I doubt not that a great revolu- 
 tion would be effected. But on reflection, both Catholic 
 and Evangelical will protest that something of importance 
 has been overlooked. The one identifies the gospel with 
 the decisions of the council, and the other with the dog- 
 matic theology of the Reformation period. "Are these," 
 it will be asked, "to be abandoned?" They need not be 
 abandoned; all that is necessary is that it should not be 
 insisted that they are the final statements of truth. Why 
 is there such enthusiasm for truth in every department of 
 life except in religion ? Men and women are devoting their 
 lives to it as truly to-day as in the days of the apostles. 
 They are denying themselves the prizes of the world in 
 order that they may learn. If the church were to set truth 
 as a goal to be won rather than as an end from which there 
 can be no advance, there might be a revival of the love of 
 truth which the churches seem to have lost. What did 
 Jesus know about God? What did he know about him- 
 self ? What did he know about man ? These are the things 
 men are interested in. It is well to remember what the 
 great teachers of the church in the past have said, but it 
 is better to know what Jesus was. Those who suppose 
 that the day will ever come when all men will agree upon 
 infallible formulas as expressions of the truth of God are 
 
FELLOWSHIP 233 
 
 deceiving themselves and wasting time already too short. 
 Tiiere is but one infallible test of truth, and that is life. 
 "Ey their fruits shall ye know them." "If any man wiU 
 do the will of God, he shall know of the doctrine." So 
 said Jesus. When the churches are willing to say the same 
 there will be a revival of enthusiasm. 
 
 "But will not this be the destruction of unity?" It 
 will be the destruction of uniformity, but it may be the 
 beginning of unity. For there is unity in search as well 
 as in possession. There was unity of search in the Middle 
 Ages when students from all parts of Europe flocked to 
 Paris and Oxford and Padua and Bologna. Had there 
 been uniformity of teaching, the students would have re- 
 mained at home. There was no uniformity, but there 
 was tlie unity of search, which was an evidence of faith 
 that truth might be known. 
 
 As the pragmatic test was applied to the theories of the 
 different teachers, the ones that failed to meet the test 
 were outgrown. And as a result of that process of elimina- 
 tion there is to-day a firmer conviction of those truths 
 which have stood the test than there could have been had 
 they been accepted on authority. There is less freedom 
 of thought in some of the modern churches than there was 
 in the mediaeval church when the great universities were 
 thronged with students. Into the great melting-pot of 
 the universities went the seekers after God and out of it 
 came the great teachers of the churches. 
 
 What is true of dogma is also true of discipline. One 
 of the reproaches most frequently made against the Protes- 
 tant churches is that they are without discipline, and that 
 this is due to their divisions. It is not due to their divi- 
 sions; it is due to their sectarianism. There is great need 
 of imity of discipline, but discipline must be the effect not 
 of prejudice but of the mind of Christ. 
 
 Fellowship is a deep spiritual experience. It is a divine 
 emotion, and it leads to a desire for companionship and 
 
234 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 co-operation. I may be far from wishing to live in the 
 
 same house with my friend and adjust my life to all his 
 peculiarities, but if he is indeed my friend, I love him and 
 desire to know him more and more; I long for his com- 
 panionship and listen to his counsel, and rejoice in his 
 prosperity and suffer in his sorrow. 
 
 This is the spirit which should animate the churches. 
 Each is too ignorant of what the other is doing; they look 
 at one another from without, and do not enter into the 
 spirit of one another. If they did, then indeed we might 
 see the unity for which our Saviour prayed. When we 
 experience it in those fellowships which we already have, 
 with intelligent, devout Roman Catholics, with earnest 
 and reverent Methodists, with Unitarians, who cannot 
 say as we delight to say, "Lord, Lord," but are doing the 
 will of the Father in Heaven, we know what fellowship 
 means. But it is exceptional. There are many Christian 
 men and women who simply cannot enter into spiritual 
 fellowship with any save those who agree with them in 
 the statement of their faith, in the manner of worship, 
 and in the form of ministry without which they cannot 
 believe that the spirit of God can dwell with man. The 
 archbishop in the Letter of the Lambeth Conference has 
 well said that the first thing needed is "repentance." But 
 if by "repentance" is meant the acknowledgment on the 
 part of the various Protestant churches that they and 
 their fathers have sinned in departing from the historic 
 order, then those who think that they have held to it must 
 also repent the separation from the Church of Rome. But 
 that means that we are to say that for four hundred years 
 the spirit of God has not guided the hearts of his faithful 
 people. This would not be repentance; it would be blas- 
 phemy ! Repentance is indeed the one thing needed. But 
 it is repentance in the sense in which the word was first 
 used. It means a change of mind, to set before oneself 
 a new ideal. We should repent our unfaithfulness, not our 
 
FELLOWSHIP 235 
 
 separations. We should repent our lack of fellowship. 
 This might be the beginning of a new way, a way that 
 would lead to that spiritual unity for which our Saviour 
 prayed, which would manifest itself in co-operation for 
 the accomplishment of the work to which the church in 
 this day is called. Such co-operation would be the means 
 to manifesting the inherent power of the church. 
 
 There is wide-spread scepticism of the power of the 
 church. When, therefore, it is suggested that the great 
 work, which all admit must be done, in the evangelization 
 of the world, the pacification of the nations, the sanctifica- 
 tion of patriotism, the purification of politics, the humaniz- 
 ing of industry, the salvation of the family, and the Chris- 
 tianizing of education, depends upon the church, there are 
 not a lew who will say that this is to put too great a bur- 
 den upon the church; that the work of the church is the 
 conversion of the individual, and that all these needed 
 reforms must be left to other agencies. *'The church has 
 not the power to do what it has here been suggested it 
 should do; such suggestions only serve to discourage when 
 what is needed is encouragement." But how is courage 
 engendered ? Is it by making light of the task, or by 
 showing plainly the immense difficulties to be overcome ? 
 The latter was the faith of Garibaldi when he set out on 
 his desperate campaign for the freedom of Rome. * ^ Come ' * 
 (said Garibaldi to the men of the Valtelline) .* "He who 
 stays at home is a coward. I promise you weariness, hard- 
 ship, and battles. But we will conquer or die." He set 
 before his men the dangers to be encountered and the 
 difficulties to be overcome, and thus stirred their hearts to 
 noble deeds. So were the hearts of the American troops 
 stirred when they were called upon to face the machine- 
 guns in the Argonne. Is the courage of Christians less? 
 It may be said: "Their courage is not less, but they are 
 
 *"Gambetta and the Thousand," George Macaulay Trevelyan, 
 p. 107. 
 
236 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 not called upon to do these things to which attention has 
 been called. These should be left to experts." The de- 
 tails should be left to experts, but it is the church which 
 must arouse the country to the need, or it will be left to 
 those who have some sinister motive which may prevent 
 the accomplishment of the great reforms. How often have 
 we seen good men arrayed against a reform because they 
 have been persuaded that its success would interfere witi 
 the hopes of the party with which they are allied. 
 
 Some may be found to say that the Christianization of 
 the world must be the result of the gradual advance of 
 civilization, but that need not be considered. It rests upon 
 an assumption which will not bear examination, which is 
 that civilization itself is Christian. Nor can the peace of 
 the world be left to diplomats. That has been tried and 
 we all know the result. Disarmament, which perhaps is 
 the most important and the most immediate step to be 
 taken for the establishment of peace, must indeed be left 
 to those who are fitted by training to deal with the details, 
 but unless the followers of the Prince of Peace are instant 
 in season and out of season it will be found that this at- 
 tempt, like the Congress of Vienna and the Council of 
 Versailles will end in disappointment and increased suspi- 
 cion. But who can doubt that if all the churches were to 
 unite in preaching a crusade against the savage arming of 
 the world, the governments of the world would be com- 
 pelled to obey? We sometimes hear it said that the 
 reason why so many efforts to establish peace have failed 
 is because the voice of the people has not been heard. 
 But what people? The notion iJiat the "people" can be 
 trusted to keep the peace is not justified by the facts of 
 history. The "people" reigned in France after the Revo- 
 lution as they do in Russia to-day, but did that bring peace ? 
 No; it is Christian people to whom the world must look if 
 it would not be engulfed in a new war. 
 
 The same truth appears when we turn to the industrial 
 
FELLOWSHIP 237 
 
 war. No change in the economic methods of conducting 
 the business of the world will avail to bring peace at home, 
 for covetousness is too strong a passion. It is only the 
 church which can convince the world that its misery is the 
 result of the violation of the fundamental law of human 
 brotherhood. The same is true of the purification of poli- 
 tics, and the education of the young, and the sanctification 
 of the family. All these depend upon the application of 
 the principles revealed by Jesus, and only the disciples of 
 Jesus can convince men that these are essential. And this 
 leads to a recognition of the importance of a revival of the 
 primary work of Jesus' ministry, and the appreciation of 
 what it means in our day. Conversion may not be a pop- 
 ular word in the churches to-day, but it is a fundamental 
 word. The kingdom of God cannot come until men have 
 changed their minds, without which there can be no con- 
 version. The first step must be in the change of mind con- 
 cerning personal holiness or, rather, personal sin. In that 
 work the churches have not been slack, but that is only 
 the beginning. The converted man must be converted in 
 every activity of his life, and such we know is too often 
 not the fact. If that could be brought about, there is no 
 one of the things we desire for the welfare of the world 
 that might not follow. Here, then, lies the opportimity 
 of the churches. They have the opportunity to influence 
 men and women which no other institution has, and to the 
 effect of that influence we can set no limits. The one 
 hopeful sign in all the shame and misery which has followed 
 the war is the recognition on the part of some of the true 
 work of the church to-day, as it was seen by the men and 
 women, the names of a few of whom have come down to 
 us, who saw the work to which the spirit of Jesus called 
 them in the second century, and so saved the world from 
 utter destruction. 
 
 But we must beware of one mistake, a mistake which 
 the church has made more than once, which is that while 
 
238 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 there is nothing in our modem life which is not the concern 
 of the church, on the other hand, it is not the business of 
 the church to dictate to state or capital or labor or legisla- 
 tures or school committees, nor any of the other agencies 
 for the effective operation of our complex life, as if the 
 church had received a mandate to supersede these agencies. 
 
 No, the work of the church to-day, as it always has 
 been, is to deal with individuals and to quicken the con- 
 science and inspire the heart. If it can do that its influ- 
 ence will be felt in every department of life. When Jesus 
 said to the man who came to him with some trouble about 
 the estate of his father, "Man, who made me a judge?" 
 he was apparently indifferent to one of the most important 
 of human interests, property. This was not the fact. He 
 turned the settlement of the particular dispute over to the 
 courts, and, turning to his disciples, said: "Beware of cov- 
 etousness." And that word of Jesus has been more potent 
 than all the codexes of the lawyers. For it is a living 
 word and to-day causes men, if they be Christians, to ask 
 themselves in each case whether their interest is in justice 
 or in the abundance of the things which they possess. 
 
 This should give the key to the labyrinth in which the 
 church finds itself to-day. Its power is proportionate to 
 its influence and its influence is determined by its faith. 
 
 Is not the scepticism of which we have spoken due to 
 the fact that we are identifying power with force ? The 
 power of the mediaeval church, as well as the power of the 
 English Church under the Stuarts, and of the Calvinistic 
 Church of Geneva and Scotland and New England, has 
 indeed departed and can never be revived. But the power 
 of the Apostolic Church, which was sufficient for the con- 
 version of the empire, and the power of the Roman Church, 
 which saved the world in the barbarian invasion, is with 
 the churches to-day. They have, but, alas, do not use to 
 the full, the power which Jesus gave to his disciples. "All 
 power," we. read, "is given to me in heaven and in earth; 
 go ye therefore and preach the gospel." . The power of 
 
FELLOWSHIP 239 
 
 heaven and earth was given them — the power to persuade. 
 No doubt, to the "natural'^ man this seems inadequate. 
 But to the ''spiritual" it is nothing less than the power of 
 God himself. To bring to the soul of man a word which 
 will awake in him the response of his divine nature is to 
 set free a force compared with which the powers of nature 
 and human governments are but as nothing. It is this 
 mighty power which is being silently exercised by good 
 men and women day by day in home and school and busi- 
 ness. They "do not strive nor cry, nor cause their voices 
 to be heard in the street," but their influence is as univer- 
 sal as the law of gravitation and as effective as the tides 
 which rise and fall without the notice of men. The per- 
 suasive influence of word and example is a power which 
 belongs to every Christian. It therefore belongs to every 
 group of Christians. But it is true that it is not being 
 exercised with full power so as to influence the lives of men 
 in their relations to one another nationally, nor indus- 
 trially, nor socially. It is not being exercised to the full 
 for the conversion of the world. But that it exists and 
 might be utilized so as to affect the life of nations is not a 
 dream but a reality. We have only to consider the great 
 revolution produced in this land in the last few years as 
 the result of the concurrent action of the various Protes- 
 tant churches in the control of the liquor traffic to see 
 what might be effected if there were full co-operation for 
 the accomplishment of other reforms. It is not necessary 
 for our purpose to consider whether this reform was brought 
 about by methods which meet the approval of all those 
 who desired to see the abolition of the saloon, nor whether 
 the embodiment of specific legislation in the Constitution 
 was the best means of dealing with the question; still less 
 whether the enactment and enforcement of the Volstead 
 Act meets with the approval of all good men and women. 
 The point is that the churches have immense latent power 
 and that that power needs the direction of the best minds 
 in all the churches. If, through the lack of wise co-opera- 
 
240 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 tion, the needed reforms are left to the fanatics, it will be 
 found that we shall be in danger of falling into the old 
 Puritan error of exalting a prejudice into a principle, and 
 so preparing the way for inevitable reaction. 
 
 In this work there must be leaders, and the leaders who 
 have been appointed by God are the ministers of the 
 church. The problem of democracy is to find wise, in- 
 terested, inspired leaders, and it is the glory of the Chris- 
 tian church that it dares to say such leaders can be found 
 only in servants. "He that is great among you let him be 
 the servant of all." The day was when the highest am- 
 bition of the youth of this country was to be ministers of 
 the gospel. The natural ambition to excel was baptized 
 into the spirit of Christ and became a passion for service. 
 All the Protestant churches are lamenting a falling off in 
 the number of ministers. May that not in part be due 
 to the fact that the ministry seems to offer no adequate 
 field for the energies of a live man ? The multiplication of 
 churches leads to ministerial inefficiency. There is not 
 enough to occupy the minister and he recognizes that his 
 work does not require the same energy as that of the 
 physician and the schoolmaster and the social worker. 
 The feverish activity of the minister is wasted in nu- 
 merous undertakings which he soon learns have no spir- 
 itual value. The experience of one such man known to 
 me is not, I fear, unknown to many. On a certain Mon- 
 day morning he failed to appear when breakfast was on 
 the table. His wife called up the stairs: "John, breakfast 
 is ready." To which he replied: "Yes." "Aren't you com- 
 ing down?" she said. "No," he replied. "Are you up?" 
 "No." "What's the matter?" "Nothing." "Why don't 
 you get up?" "What for?" If the church could show its 
 ministers how great the task is, how great the need, how 
 sublime the call, could such a spirit of despair take pos- 
 session of them? It is the pettiness of the ministry, not 
 its poverty, which chills the enthusiasm of the youth. 
 
FELLOWSHIP 241 
 
 The question, then, which we should ask ourselves, and 
 so bring to an end this study, is: How is that power to be 
 generated and maintained? There can be but one answer. 
 It is the result of communion with God which is experi- 
 enced in prayer or worship. But how seldom we worship ! 
 The individual Christian prays for the things he most de- 
 sires, and the congregation gathers for the public prayer 
 and to listen to a sermon. But how seldom we worship ! 
 For worship is the acknowledgment that there is but one 
 Life in the universe worthy of the adoration of mankind. 
 Surely, if that were remembered, the prevailing atmosphere 
 of every church would be one of awful reverence. Can it 
 be said that that is the characteristic of the average Protes- 
 tant church? 
 
 We smile at Dr. Johnson's dictum, when, speaking of 
 a certain man who was not approved by the company, he 
 said: "Sir, he is a good man. He lifts his hat when he 
 passes a church !" But is there not a truth in it? Is our 
 pragmatic test of goodness fine enough for the spiritual 
 life? Is not the "reverence of God the beginning of wis- 
 dom"? The "fear" of God is the enemy of worship, for 
 it paralyzes the energies of man. But the reverence of 
 God would find expression in praise. This the instinct of 
 the church has always recognized. And it is significant 
 that in praise we find a spiritual unity which has not been 
 attained in any other way. Our hymns are drawn from 
 every church; but who remembers that "Lead, Kindly 
 Light," is the song of a Roman Catholic?* Or that 
 "Nearer, My God, to Thee" was written by a Unitarian? 
 Every church can join in the familiar words, 
 
 "AH people that on earth do dwell, 
 Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice," 
 
 * It is true that when Newman wrote this hymn he was still a min- 
 ister of the English Church, but as we read the story of his life we 
 perceive that he was already a Roman Catholic at heart, though he 
 himself had not discovered the fact. 
 
242 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 because in such hymns there is brought home to us the 
 remembrance that he hath redeemed us "out of every 
 nation and tribe and kindred and tongue.'* (Why can we 
 not add church?) *'We are his people and the sheep of 
 his pasture." It is in such moments that we believe the 
 worship of God is most acceptable to our Heavenly Fa'tker, 
 as we know it to be most helpful to us. 
 
 Now every congregation, whether it be large or small, 
 which so worships, we believe worships in "spirit and in 
 truth." "God is spirit." That means that God is life, 
 and that life is in communion with persons. But we are 
 truly persons only in so far as we are truly human. The 
 first step in the establishment of personality is the unifica- 
 tion of individual experiences. But full personality would 
 be the unity of universal experience. It is worship which 
 exalts personality, first by bringing it into communion 
 with the One Person in the Universe, and, second, by en- 
 abling each individual to enter into an experience of life 
 with which he has had no personal acquaintance. The 
 family of God includes more than those who are conscious 
 of that relationship. The heathen, the fallen, the tempted, 
 and the struggling, are members of the family, and any 
 worship which ignores them is defective. An objection 
 is sometimes made to the ancient liturgies on the ground 
 that they are "unreal." It may be that they seem unreal 
 to us because we are lacking in humanity. But it does not 
 follow that they were unreal to those who remembered 
 what they had been before they heard the good news, nor 
 what their brothers still were. To the respectable man 
 who has kept the commandments from his youth up there 
 may seem something unreal in a prayer which implies that 
 he may fall into the shameful life into which he has never 
 yet fallen; but to the mother whose son is a drunkard and 
 who knows, as the son does not know, the horror of drunken- 
 ness, a prayer that neither she nor any she loves may fall 
 from grace into the degradation of the drunkard does not 
 seem an unreal or an unnatural prayer. It does not mean 
 
FELLOWSHIP 243 
 
 that she is in danger of intemperance; it means that she 
 is suffering vicariously for the sin of her child, and that by 
 his sin her soul feels the defilement of sin. He is as truly 
 a part of herself as when she carried him in her womb. 
 For "all sorts and conditions of men" the church must 
 praV; whether in the language of the ancient liturgy or 
 in the words which come to the lips of the minister at the 
 moment. Otherwise the individual experience of minister 
 or worshipper will limit the expanding love which should 
 embrace all the children of God. Only in proportion as 
 this is done does the soul attain to the measure of the 
 stature of Christ. 
 
 Now there is such a thing as corporate experience. That 
 is to say, there is individual experience which is influenced 
 by association with those who are of like mind with itself. 
 And while that is natural and helpful as a beginning in 
 Christian fellowship, if it be not expanded by a larger asso- 
 ciation in worship with those who have been led by other 
 paths, the result will be a sort of provincial personality, 
 which is what the Catholic rightly protests against. A 
 worship, then, which would at least from time to time unite 
 all those who love the Lord Jesus Christ would be the 
 most potent means for the accomplishment of that unity 
 of the spirit which generates and preserves the power of 
 the church. 
 
 Conferences and congresses no doubt have a value by 
 bringing many men of many minds into touch with one 
 another; but unless Christian people can join together in 
 prayer and praise, unless they can receive together the 
 symbols of the death of their common Redeemer, there 
 can be no real unity of the spirit. Here questions arise 
 which it ought not to be difficult for men of good-will to 
 answer. "What sort of service would be most acceptable, 
 that is, most helpful?" "Who is to administer such a 
 service ? " And lastly: "By what means could such a com- 
 munion of Christians be brought about?" 
 
 I venture to suggest that such a service as we have in 
 
244 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 mind should be largely liturgical, not because I believe 
 that is necessary, but simply because I believe it would 
 be found most practical, that is, most helpful. For those 
 who are used to a liturgy find it difficult to take part in a 
 service in which there are no printed directions. Without 
 such it would not be easy for those who have a formal habit 
 to be freed from an embarrassing self-consciousness. The 
 fact is that the former prejudice against a liturgy has 
 largely disappeared. As soon as men found they were 
 not compelled to conform, they began to use their liberty 
 as it seemed best to them.* As a result many of the non- 
 liturgical churches are using a liturgy, not as a bondage 
 but as a means of grace. The marriage service of the Epis- 
 copal Church is frequently used by other churches, and so 
 is the burial office. This is done in no spirit of imitation 
 but with a freedom which is illuminating and helpful. 
 These services are often enriched by the prayers of the 
 minister who is restrained by no rubrics. Why might not 
 the communion service be so used in such an occasional 
 service as we are now considering? Numbers of those 
 who habitually worship in other churches partake of the 
 communion in the Episcopal Church if they happen to 
 be present on the first Sunday in the month. This they 
 can do, because they now feel that the Puritan objection 
 to the reception of the Sacrament kneeling has lost its force. 
 They know that when the Episcopalian kneels at the re- 
 ception of the elements he does not intend thereby to im- 
 ply that he is adoring them, but is simply perpetuating 
 an ancient custom which appeals to the spirit of reverence 
 to-day. t On the other hand, those who have been from 
 
 * At one of the great universities it is the custom for the preacher 
 to wear the "Geneva" gown. When a distinguished minister of one 
 of the non-liturgical churches was asked by the pastor if he would wear 
 the gown, which it was not his custom to do, he asked : " Is it required ? " 
 And when he was told it was not, he replied: " I will gladly wear it." 
 
 t It cannot be denied that not a few sacramentarians will not admit 
 this, but those who are interested in the authoritative teaching of the 
 
FELLOWSHIP 245 
 
 their youth familiar with the service of the Prayer-Book 
 do not feel equally at home in other churches because they 
 are not familiar with the custom. There is, of course, dan- 
 ger that it might be supposed by some that if such a service 
 were the one used when Christians of various churches 
 gathered together, it was implied it had a sanctity which 
 is denied to the more spontaneous worship of the non- 
 liturgical churches. But if we turn to our second ques- 
 tion, ''Who is to administer such a 'union' service?" the 
 answer to the objection will be found. If what has been 
 said in an earlier part of this book be true, that every minis- 
 try which has approved itself to any part of the church 
 is of equal validity with every other (and if that be not 
 admitted, then there is no object in considering Christian 
 fellowship), it will follow that the service contemplated 
 should be administered by the minister of the church in 
 which such service is held, or by one designated by the dif- 
 ferent ministers who took part in such services. He then 
 would not be bound by rubrics, but might return to the 
 custom described in the "Apostolic Constitutions," and 
 add to the formal liturgy such prayers as the spirit would 
 have him utter. 
 
 Such a union of Christians might not seem to have great 
 value if we are looking to immediate results, but if our 
 vision is *'afar off," if we believe in the Catholic Church, 
 not as an historic reality which has been attained in the 
 past, but rather as a sublime ideal toward which we press, 
 then it will be found that such a service as we have been 
 contemplating would do more than inspire the worshippers 
 who took part in it; it would testify that we have come at 
 last to believe in the validity of the ministry which has not 
 alone the "apostolic" but the "prophetic" or the "pas- 
 toral" succession as well. And when that day comes the 
 
 Anglican communion would do well to read the declaration which was 
 omitted from the Prayer-Book in 1559, but replaced in the revision of 
 1661. See "The Holy Communion in Great Britain and America," 
 J. Brett Langstaff, p. 85. 
 
246 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 chief difficulty in the way of the full co-operation of the 
 churches will have been overcome. 
 
 No doubt, there are not a few in the Episcopal Church, 
 and perhaps in other churches as well, who would feel that 
 they could not conscientiously take part in such a service; 
 not that they are lacking in love, but because they are con- 
 vinced that they would be doing that which their Lord 
 would not approve. Well, their prejudice must be re- 
 spected. Those who are familiar with the history of the 
 church are convinced that these hold a theory of the 
 church which the larger knowledge will, in time, show to 
 be untenable, and wait in patience until the truth appears 
 to them. We believe that all the forces of life are against 
 them, but we also believe that they are filled with a true 
 love of Christ and of his brethren. But while all this is 
 recognized, it must be remembered that there is work for 
 the church to do which must not be delayed, because, like 
 certain of the tribes of Israel, there are those who will not 
 pass over Jordan. In time they will feel the need of fel- 
 lowship and the isolation of separation from the brethren 
 of the promise. "In my youthful zeal," says Principal 
 Moton, "I preferred being an ignorant Baptist rather than 
 a cultivated Presbyterian, and this (declaration) never 
 failed to bring forth much approval and applause from the 
 colored people of the community." * Alas ! the same sort 
 of declaration — ^with a change in name of the denomina- 
 tions — will bring forth applause to-day from those who 
 would be ashamed to have it thought that they had made 
 no advance from the condition of the poor black folk who 
 in their zeal identified sectarianism with Christianity.! 
 
 * "Finding a Way Out," Robert Russa Moton, p. 38. 
 
 t This modern and perhaps grotesque illustration of the sectarian 
 spirit can be matched by an incident in the history of the early church: 
 "Acesius," said the Emperor Constantine to one of the Novatian 
 bishops at the Council of Nice, "... take a ladder and get up to 
 heaven by yourself." Gibbon adds: " Most of the Christian sects have, 
 by turns, borrowed the ladder of Acesius." — "Decline and Fall of the 
 Roman Empire," chap. XXI. 
 
FELLOWSHIP 247 
 
 But supposing a form of service were agreed upon, and 
 the question of the ministry settled, there would still re- 
 main the thorny difficulty of doctrine. But here again, if 
 there be a will, there will be found a way. If any object 
 to the use of the ancient formulas of the faith — and many 
 do — ^would it not be possible, if it be thought indispensa- 
 ble, to state our faith explicitly on each occasion of public 
 worship — simply to repeat the Gloria Patri or to sing the 
 Doxology? But, indeed, I am inclined to think that it 
 might be well, certainly at first, to avoid any attempt to 
 find a formula which would explicitly set forth the church's 
 faith at such a time. The thing to be remembered is that 
 there is implicit unity of faith, and so it might be sufficient 
 to join in saying *'Our Father," and the apostolic blessing, 
 "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, 
 and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all." To 
 these all "who profess and call themselves Christians" 
 could say "Amen." 
 
 There is an opportunity here for the Episcopal Church 
 to take the lead which none of the other churches enjoys. 
 In some of the great cities there are now cathedrals, which 
 at present seem to not a few to be anachronisms. But 
 here is an opportunity to use them for a forward step in 
 the Christian life of America. The cathedrals alone are 
 large enough to contain such a congregation as could be 
 gathered for a united service of all the Christians of the 
 city. The throwing open of such vast buildings for a ser- 
 vice in which the churches of every name would be recog- 
 nized as having equal value in the sight of God would not 
 only justify the great cost of the buildings but would do 
 far more to bring about the unity of the spirit than all 
 discussions of "faith and order." It would be an outward 
 and visible recognition of the "spiritual reality" of the 
 ministries of the different churches to which the letter of 
 the archbishop of Canterbury calls attention. 
 
 The suggestion that a bishop could be foimd who would 
 
248 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 be willing to use the cathedral of which he is the head for 
 such a purpose may seem too improbable to deserve serious 
 attention. But time has done wonders and greater won- 
 ders are yet to appear. Who would have believed ten 
 years ago that prohibition could be made the law of the 
 land? Who would not have been laughed to scorn who 
 ten years ago had prophesied that compulsory military 
 service could be made a law and accepted by the American 
 people as the natural way of meeting a supreme duty .? Is 
 it to be beHeved that the church alone is unable to respond 
 to the voice of the spirit because it speaks a new message ? 
 Already one bishop has taken a step in this direction.* 
 Some day there may appear a bishop who will prove him- 
 self a true leader — not backward, but forward — and when 
 such appears, the whole church will feel the effects of his 
 leadership. 
 
 But the churches are not dependent upon the Episcopal 
 Church to show the way. Nor need we wait for the move- 
 ment to begin in one of the great cities. Still less are we 
 to wait for an ecumenical council. To the average Ameri- 
 can there seems something unreal to read in an English 
 book that an ecumenical council will some day deal with 
 the problem of church unity. To him an ecumenical 
 council is as unthinkable as the restoration of the Holy 
 Roman Empire. But to men whose church is closely asso- 
 ciated with the state it seems a natural thing to have 
 great problems affecting the relation of one state to an- 
 other — and therefore of one church to another — settled by 
 a diplomatic corps. But to us the "town meeting" seems 
 the natural way of dealing with the interests of the com- 
 munity. It is true that the town meeting cannot deal 
 with world-wide problems; but, on the other hand, it can 
 try experiments which, if they succeed in one commimity, 
 can easily be adopted by others. If, now, in any small 
 town an effort were made by the ministers and chosen 
 *See The Churchman for June 4, 192 1, p. 20. 
 
FELLOWSHIP 249 
 
 men and women from the different congregations to empha- 
 size the spiritual unity which exists but has not been util- 
 ized, it might be found not only that the spiritual life of 
 that particular town was vivified, but that the influence 
 would spread to other communities, and in time would 
 receive the sanction of the churches. Then we might ex- 
 pect to see the American methods of standardization and 
 consolidation which have revolutionized our industrial life 
 made effective in our ecclesiastical life without the loss of 
 indi^ldual liberty. 
 
 Through fellowship in the light of God, by worship in 
 spirit and in truth, by co-operation in good works, lies the 
 pathway to that spiritual unity for which we daily pray — 
 ''unity of spirit in the bond of peace and in righteousness 
 of life." This is the immediate, practical, and inspiring 
 unity which is attainable to-day among those who "love 
 the»Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity." We are not called to 
 organize an ecclesiastical kingdom of this world, but to 
 follow Jesus and "let the kingdom come." How are we 
 to follow him ? We must join ourselves to all those who 
 in our day and generation are seeking to live in his spirit. 
 The first thing is to rewrite Paul's radical declaration of 
 independence, so that it will read not "There are no more 
 Jews, nor Greeks, barbarians, Scythians, bond nor free," 
 but, rather, there are no more Episcopalians, Presbyteri- 
 ans, Methodists — or other denominations — "but Christ is 
 all and in all." This would not mean that we ignored the 
 facts of life any more than Paul ignored them. The Jew 
 and the Greek, the barbarian and the Scythian, the bond 
 and the free, continued to exist, but to Paul these names 
 described only their superficial differences. Their unity 
 consisted in the fact that they were all the children of one 
 Father, So must they seem to the men and women of 
 the churches to-day. 
 
 The churches should be ashamed to continue longer in 
 the spirit of Jonah, the spirit which fails to see good else- 
 
2SO THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 where than in the little company of which he forms a part; 
 the spirit which, on the eve of a great revelation of God's 
 wide-spread mercy and redeeming love, is angry because 
 the little system which helped us is about to be destroyed, 
 but cares not if the whole world perish provided that can 
 be perpetuated. There is not one of the churches which 
 is not suffering from the general scepticism of the systems 
 in which they have put their trust, and unless they can 
 unite on some basis which will endure, they shall see as 
 surely as the Jewish Church saw the vineyard taken from 
 them and given to others. 
 
 We have been thinking of the effect of spiritual unity 
 upon those who are already united with the various 
 churches, but think how wide-spread might be the effect 
 of such spiritual unity upon the lives of that vast multi- 
 tude of earnest men and women who are "waiting for the 
 coming of the kingdom of God," and yet can find no home 
 in any of the ecclesiastical organizations. The power of 
 the church can never be effective until it recognizes and 
 provides for the unchurched disciples of our Lord. Such 
 a disciple was Abraham Lincoln. He is reported to have 
 said that "he had never united with any church because 
 he found difficulty in giving his assent without mental 
 reservation to the long, complicated statement of Chris- 
 tian doctrine which characterized their articles of belief 
 and confessions of faith. 'When any church,' (he said) 
 'will inscribe over its altar as its sole qualification of mem- 
 bership the Saviour's condensed statement of the sub- 
 stance of both law and gospel "Thou shalt love the Lord 
 thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with 
 all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself," that church 
 will I join with all my heart and with all my soul.' " * We 
 
 * Henry Champion Deming's eulogy on Lincoln before the General 
 Assembly, Hartford, Conn., quoted in "Latest Light on Abraham 
 Lincoln," Ervin Chapman, p. 430. 
 
FELLOWSHIP 251 
 
 may think that the great-hearted President had but in- 
 adequate knowledge of the full message of the church, but 
 we must admit that here as so often he laid his finger upon 
 the one thing needed. When the prophet Elijah was sunk 
 in despair as he thought that when he died the religion of 
 Jehovali would die with him, we are told that the ** still, 
 small voice" revealed to him the existence of thousands 
 who were with him in spirit and had been as heroic in their 
 undistinguished lives as he had been when he faced the 
 prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. When Jesus was 
 told of those who were casting out devils in his name, but 
 did not follow with his disciples, he joyfully exclaimed: 
 "All who are not against me are with me." The great 
 teachers of the early church declared that the philosophers 
 who had purified the spirit of Greece were as truly God's 
 messengers as the prophets who had spoken to Israel. St. 
 Augustine, who had been prepared for the message of Am- 
 brose by the great teachers of Greece, as translated by 
 Latin writers, humbly acknowledged his debt to them and 
 spoke with sublime hope of all who are " Christians by na- 
 ture." It is these souls that the church needs; it is these 
 souls which need the church, and could the church so pre- 
 sent that life which is the same "yesterday, to-day, and 
 forever," its power would be enormously increased by the 
 recruits who would flock to the standard of the cross. 
 
 We are not called upon to discredit our past, nor to 
 dilute the message of the church, nor to say that we are 
 willing that what has blessed us shall be thrown away with- 
 out its incorporation into the larger religious life which 
 we hope is to be manifested in this land; but we are called 
 upon to present that message in such a way that it can 
 be accepted by intelligent and devout men and women 
 who are repelled by the obscurantist dogmatism of the 
 church, and its insistence upon the eternal value of tem- 
 porary forms and expressions of belief. But what each 
 
252 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 feels about his own church he should have imagination 
 enough to see that others feel for their churches. Then 
 the next step might be taken: mien and women of good- 
 will might come together to quicken their spiritual life 
 by common worship, and in the spirit received from com- 
 munion with God consider the spiritual condition of the 
 community in which they live, and set themselves to the 
 great work: the conversion of the world, the peace of the 
 nations, the rescue of politics from the hands of unworthy 
 men, the purification of the family, and the bringing of 
 the spirit of brotherhood into the industrial life of the na- 
 tion. It is a great and glorious work. It can be done by 
 none of the churches alone. But it can be done by the 
 Christian fellowship. 
 
 Christ is the way, and what is necessary for communion 
 with Christ is necessary for communion with his church; 
 and what is not necessary for communion with Christ is 
 not necessary for commmiion with his church. This is so 
 obvious that it has been overlooked. The purpose of this 
 book has not been to say anything original, but to call 
 attention to things that have been forgotten or overlooked. 
 This humble task was not deemed unworthy of the Mas- 
 ter himself. Jesus recognized the value of the obvious 
 when he said: "How is it that ye cannot discern the signs 
 of the times ?^' 
 
 A few of the more evident signs of the times might in 
 conclusion be profitably considered. First, the failure of 
 the scientific prophecy of the inevitable improvement in a 
 godless world. Science has done so much to make the 
 conditions of life on this planet interesting, healthful, and 
 prosperous that for a while it seemed as if the soul might 
 be satisfied with the things which can be seen and touched. 
 But the devastating war has shown that man's highest as- 
 pirations cannot be satisfied by prosperity; the soul is 
 athirst for the living God. Man had become sceptical of 
 
FELLOWSHIP 253 
 
 metaphysical speculations and turned in hope to the real- 
 ities revealed by science. He is now turning with new hope 
 to the study of psychology, where it is believed the con- 
 flict between metaphysics and science can be reconciled. 
 This hope may be justified, but it will only be through the 
 experience of the psalmist who found that when he woke 
 up he was present with God. 
 
 Second, the impotence of Protestantism as shown in its 
 failure to spiritualize life and to appeal to the highest in- 
 telligence and satisfy the ethical aspirations of mankind. 
 Third, the renewed vigor of the Roman Catholic Church 
 as revealed by its gains in Germany and its renewed in- 
 fluence in France. The temporal power of the pope, 
 which it had been supposed the war between Germany and 
 France in 1870 had weakened and the fall of the Haps- 
 burg dynasty had finally destroyed, is again emerging 
 through the agency of the democratic movements directed 
 by the Vatican. 
 
 These are some of the evident signs of the times, but 
 there is one not so evident but equally real, and that is 
 the spiritual unity which the divisions of the church have 
 not destroyed. If that spiritual unity could be realized, 
 first by the recognition of the evidences of spiritual life in 
 individuals in all the churches, the way might be opened 
 for a fellowship which would convince the world that God 
 is with his people. 
 
 It is sometimes said that there is need of a new Refor- 
 mation, but this I believe to be an error. Great as were the 
 benefits of the Reformation of the sixteenth century, it 
 failed to fulfil its promise by entangling the spirit in the 
 machinery of organization and preventing its expansion 
 by dogmatic limitations. What is needed is not a new 
 Reformation, that is, a new form, but a restoration of the 
 primitive church by the manifestation of the spirit of 
 Christ. Of all the churches of the Reformation period, it 
 
254 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 was the Anglican Church which most clearly perceived that 
 need.* But the entanglement of the English Church with 
 the state made it impossible to realize this hope. The 
 revolution produced in the Anglican communion by the 
 Tractarian movement re-emphasized the importance of 
 faith and orders, and led to a misunderstanding of the 
 meaning of Christian unity. If now we could seek for the 
 unity of the spirit, recognizing that forms of government 
 and creedal statements have only relative value, and con- 
 sequently may take different forms at different times and 
 in divers places, spiritual unity might be attained and as a 
 result the influence of the churches be made more effec- 
 tive. 
 
 The first step, it has been suggested, is to seek for the 
 realization of the spiritual unity which already exists 
 among the Protestant churches, first in America and then 
 throughout the world. If that could be accomplished a 
 united Protestantism could not fail to influence in the 
 twentieth century the Roman Catholic Church as did the 
 Reformation of the sixteenth century. Too often we think 
 of the Reformation as a purely Protestant movement, but 
 as a matter of fact it led to the reformation of the Roman 
 Catholic Church, to the need of which the reforming 
 councils of the fifteenth century had called attention but 
 were unable to effect. There are thousands of Roman 
 Catholics whose allegiance to the august organization can- 
 not be shaken by any protest, but who would respond to 
 the influence of a spiritual fellowship which revealed the 
 presence of God outside what they have been taught to 
 believe is the visible church of Christ. They would not 
 become Protestants, but they might become more en- 
 lightened Christians. But the gain would not be confined 
 to the Roman Catholic Church; it in turn has treasures by 
 
 * See "The Reconstruction of the English Church," by Roland G. 
 Usher, Ph.D., vol. I. 
 
FELLOWSHIP 255 
 
 which Protestantism might be enriched. Protestantism 
 has been too exclusively self-conscious. The power of the 
 Roman Catholic Church lies in its influence upon the un- 
 conscious, the mystical element in man's nature, which 
 cannot be expressed in words but is ministered to by sym- 
 bolism. 
 
 There will open also before the next generation an op- 
 portunity to come into touch with the spiritual life of 
 eastern Christendom, not by the path of faith and orders 
 but by the infiltration of the spirit. It has lately been 
 said by one who knows the facts in Russia that the one 
 hope of Russia to-day lies in the church. It is the only 
 organization which the Jewish leaders of the Soviet gov- 
 ernment have been unable to destroy, and to it plain peo- 
 ple are again turning with renewed hope. It may be that 
 the ecclesiastics are filled with the vain expectation which 
 characterized the Roman Catholic Church in France at 
 the time of the Revolution, of restoring the monarchy, 
 but we are assured that there is no such intention on the 
 part of Christian people, taken as a whole, in Russia. 
 They are looking for a democratic state which shall be 
 spiritualized by a democratic church. To such Protestant- 
 ism has a message. The dreamy Orient needs to be guided 
 by the practical wisdom of the West. But, on the other 
 hand, how much has the West to learn from the East! 
 Martha has been the patron saint of Protestantism, but 
 her bustling activity needs to be purified by the loving 
 adoration of Mary. Protestantism has spoken "with the 
 tongues of men and angels"; the Roman Church has 
 "bestowed all its goods to feed the poor"; it may be found 
 that the Eastern Church, in its apparent inefiiciency, has 
 kept alive the greatest gift of all, which is love. If, in the 
 far future, Christian people could unite practical wisdom, 
 merciful service, and adoring love the world would know 
 that God had sent them. Two things are needed, vision 
 
256 THE CRISIS OF THE CHURCHES 
 
 and patience, but the vision must be drawn not from the 
 past but from the future, seeing the city of God coming 
 down from heaven. It cannot be realized in our lifetime; 
 "the vision ... is for many days to come." But nothing 
 less will inspire us to lift up our hearts and in patience pos- 
 sess our souls. 
 
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