some upon independent levels of creative
freedom, some on those of discipleship: for here all men are not equal,
and it is humbug to pretend that they are. This social order, being so
built of regenerate units, would be dominated by these same implicits of
the regenerate consciousness; and would tend to solve in their light the
special problems of community life. And this unity of aim would really
make of it one body; the body of a fully socialized _and_ fully
spiritualized humanity, which perhaps we might without presumption
describe as indeed the son of God.

The life of such a social organism, its growth, its cycle of corporate
behaviour, would be strung on that same fourfold cord which combined the
desires and deeds of the regenerate self into a series: namely,
Penitence, Surrender, Recollection, and Work. It would be actuated first
by a real social repentance. That is, by a turning from that constant
capitulation to its past, to animal and savage impulse, the power of
which our generation at least knows only too well; and by the
complementary effort to unify vigorous instinctive action and social
conscience. I think every one can find for themselves some sphere,
national, racial, industrial, financial, in which social penitence could
work; and the constant corporate fall-back into sin, which we now
disguise as human nature, or sometimes--even more insincerely--as
economic and political necessity, might be faced and called by its true
name. Such a social penitence--such a corporate realization of the mess
that we have made of things--is as much a direct movement of the Spirit,
and as great an essential of regeneration, as any individual movement of
the broken and contrite heart.

Could a quick social conscience, aware of obligations to Reality which
do not end with making this world a comfortable place--though we have
not even managed that for the majority of men--feel quite at ease, say,
after an unflinching survey of our present system of State punishment?
Or after reading the unvarnished record of our dealings with the problem
of Indian immigration into Africa? Or after considering the inner nature
of international diplomacy and finance? Or even, to come nearer home,
after a stroll through Hoxton: the sort of place, it is true, which we
have not exactly made on purpose but which has made itself because we
have not, as a community, exercised our undoubted powers of choice and
action in an intelligent and loving