ubmission to rule. Some traditional and
theological standard. Some missionary effort and enthusiasm. For these
four things we must find place in any incorporation of the spiritual
life which is to have its full effect upon the souls of men. And as a
matter of fact, the periodical revolts against churches and
ecclesiasticism, are never against societies in which all these
characteristics are still alive; but against those which retain and
exaggerate formal tradition and authority, whilst they have lost zest
and identity of aim.

A real Church has therefore something to give to, and something to
demand from each of its members, and there is a genuine loss for man in
being unchurched. Because it endures through a perpetual process of
discarding and renewal, those members will share the richness and
experience of a spiritual life far exceeding their own time-span; a
truth which is enshrined in the beautiful conception of the Communion of
Saints. They enter a group consciousness which reinforces their own in
the extent to which they surrender to it; which surrounds them with
favourable suggestions and gives the precision of habit to their
instinct for Eternity. The special atmosphere, the hoarded beauty, the
evocative yet often archaic symbolism, of a Gothic Cathedral, with its
constant reminiscences of past civilizations and old levels of culture,
its broken fragments and abandoned altars, its conservation of eternal
truths--the intimate union in it of the sublime and homely, the
successive and abiding aspects of reality--make it the most fitting of
all images of the Church, regarded as the spiritual institution of
humanity. And the perhaps undue conservatism commonly associated with
Cathedral circles represents too the chief reproach which can be brought
against churches--their tendency to preserve stability at the expense of
novelty, to crystallize, to cling to habits and customs which no longer
serve a useful end. In this a church is like a home; where old bits of
furniture have a way of hanging on, and old habits, sometimes absurd,
endure. Yet both the home and the church can give something which is
nowhere else obtainable by us, and represent values which it is perilous
to ignore. When once the historical character of reality is fully
grasped by us, we see that some such organization through which achieved
values are conserved and carried forward, useful habits are learned and
practised, the direct intuitions of genius