does, that the new
movement should be far wider than anything the world had ever seen;
it was to cover the whole of mankind. He meant that every individual
in all the world should have the centre of gravity of his thinking
shifted.

Again, he had to think of a re-creation of the language of men, till
God should be a new word. Our constant problem is to give his word
his value, his meaning. He meant that men should learn their
religious vocabulary again, till the words they used should suggest
his meanings to their minds. Something of this was achieved, when
some of his disciples came to him and said: "Teach us to pray, as
John also taught his disciples" (Luke 11:1). Further, he had to
secure that men should begin the rethinking of all life--personal,
social, and national--from the very foundations, on new lines--what
is called a transvaluation of all values. With a new centre,
everything has to be thought out anew into what St. Paul calls the
fullness of Christ (Eph. 4:13). Then finally the question comes, how
to secure continuity? Will the movement outlast his personal
influence? These are his problems--large enough, every one of them.
How does he face them?

The Gospel began with friendship, and we know from common life what
that is, and how it works. Old acquaintance and intimacy are the
heart of it. The mind is on the alert when we meet the
stranger--quick and eager to master his outlook and his ways of
thought, to see who and what he is--it is critical, self-protective,
rather than receptive. But, as time goes on, we notice less, we
study the man less as we see more of him. Yet, in this easier and
more careless intercourse, when the mind is off guard, it is
receiving a host of unnoticed impressions, which in the long run may
have extraordinary influence. Pleasant and easy-going, a perpetual
source of interest and rest of mind, the friendship continues, till
we find to our surprise that we are changed. Stage by stage, as one
comes to know one's friend, by unconscious and freely given
sympathy, one lives the other man's life, sees and feels things as
he does, slips into his language, and, by degrees, into his
thoughts--and then wakes up to find oneself, as it were, remade by
the other's personality, so close has been the identification with
the man we grew to love. This is what we find in our own lives; and
we find it in the Gospels.

A sentence from St. Augustine's Confessions gives us the key to the
whole st