be released from the Comus-spell that has bemused her, and freed from her idolatry of pelf and luxury. She must become aware of herself as entrusted with a divine mission to all humanity, and all her children must learn to care far less for personal gain, or even for the immediate advantage of their class, than for the abiding welfare of the nation, whose glory is her power of universal service. Now, it is obvious that such a loyalty as is needed can be nothing less than a religion. It may not bear the Christian name; it cannot be expressed solely in Christian phraseology. But it must be such a devotion as men have never rendered save to their gods, and such as cannot be inspired by any motive short of what is counted ultimately sacred and inviolable. This can only be engendered by blending the ideal inspirations of all religious bodies, and by a re-interpretation of religion in such language as shall show its identity with the highest patriotism and its vital relation to the enduring good of men and nations in the life that now is. Every Christian Church, if it be wise, can express its message in such terms. If it cannot, then it is in so far not truly Christian; and its inability to do so will involve and justify its own speedy supersession.

But what I am contending for is an interest more supreme and transcendent than the maintenance of Christianity in its outward form. No true inheritor of the spirit of Christ would hesitate for a moment to say: Let the name of Christ perish from the memory of men, if only so is it possible for his spirit to be lifted into sovereignty over their hearts and wills. It sometimes happens in the spiritual life, though not in outward nature, that that which is sown cannot be quickened except it die; and it may be that the only condition

upon which the spirit of Jesus can rise into newness of life as an impelling force in future civilization, is that outward homage to him shall disappear. I do not suggest that this is certain or even likely to happen; my point is that it were better so than that his name should continue to be outwardly reverenced, while that for which he lived and died is in practice trodden under foot.

Short, however, of such a complete disappearance of the outward form of historic Christianity, it is certain that the existing Churches must make radical changes of policy and doctrine if they are to survive. The current apologetic of orthodoxy is worse than futile as addressed to a generation trained in critical philosophy and in the methods and the rigorous standards of exactitude characteristic of modern science.

The Church to-day stands face to face with the choice between its letter and its life. It can preserve the outward forms of traditional orthodoxy only at the cost of the stifling of that spirit by which, and for the sake of which, they were originally created. Christianity now stands where Judaism stood at the beginning of the Christian era. It must either receive and blend with its historic elements the new spiritual life that is surging through the world, or it must suffer a tragic but not unmerited supersession. More than half of America is to-day without a religion. Without a religion it cannot live, nor can it live with the religion of the past. The experience of ages justifies the conviction that the old faith cannot again prevail, except by an adaptation more radical and farreaching than any it has hitherto undergone. The question, then, for the Churches is whether they value the letter more than the spirit, and the past more than that future, the creation of which is entrusted to men now living.

Mere toleration of differences in religion is as beggarly and unsatisfactory a compromise as it would be in our knowledge of the external world. Our feeling in regard to science is that universal and objective truth is to be found; and so long as there is difference of belief we are unsatisfied. Now, no man who is convinced of the universal validity of the principles of reason can doubt that incontrovertible truth in the sphere of religion, whatever it may prove to be, is at least attainable. If we have not reached it, this is because our methods of inquiry have not been right, or have not been adequately developed. We have adhered to the pre-scientific methods of antiquity in the search for ultimate religious truth, and the results have inevitably proved discouraging; so much so that we have even surrendered the ideal. We have grown so accustomed to mere individualistic toleration of differences of view with regard to God and fate that we have come not merely to acquiesce in perpetual diversity of conviction as unavoidable, but almost to count it good. The proposer, therefore, of a plan which aims, among other things, at ending it, must say at least a word in explanation of his desire to do so.

I would accordingly remind the reader that it is not long since men were at sixes and sevens over many of the questions of physical science. Not only did unity of belief in these matters appear impossible, but it was not even felt to be necessary. To-day, however, we can see that the immense enterprises-in engineering, in mining, in the building up of systems for the transportation of men and commodities, in medicine and surgery, in the improvement and safeguarding of the public health, and in a thousand other matters of vital importance—which have transformed the world within the memory of men

still living, could never have even begun to be possible had not the old diversity of belief in regard to the make of the physical world been driven out and replaced by approximate unity. The world to-day is suffering spiritually by reason of the diversity of religious beliefs even more than it formerly suffered materially through the lack of unanimity in the understanding of physical facts. It is, moreover, impossible for thoughtful men to rest satisfied with a state of affairs which inevitably leaves men's moral and spiritual convictions at the stage of mere beliefs. Religion will not rise to its full power until experience has given place to experiment, and until, wherever possible, conscientious convictions are transformed into demonstrated truths.

It is not possible at present to forecast the immense achievements in the regeneration of human nature, in the wedding of mighty genius to forms of unpredictable efficiency and beauty, which will ensue when our command over the forces that generate character is as complete as our present control over the resources of the external world. The anticipation, however, of such an era of man's godlike self-fulfilment, is justified by every analogy of experience. No man in Francis Bacon's day could have foreseen the effect of his proposals to cultivate natural knowledge as a means for the relief of man's estate; and, to many, his visions of the triumphs to be won by his method doubtless seemed baseless and fantastic. The hope of the world in religion must also remain vague. It doth not yet appear what we shall be. But it is as rational to anticipate a surpassing glory to result from spiritual unification as it would be foolish to attempt to delineate that glory in detail before the hour of its manifestation shall arrive.

INDEX