ought to be aimed at,--then our
attitude towards the whole process of evolution is changed: it is now a
process with an end--and that end the same for the individual and for
society. But at the same time it is no longer a process determined by
mechanical {257} causes worked by the iron hand of necessity--and
therefore it is no longer evolution in the scientific sense; it is no
longer evolution as understood by science. It is now a process in
which there may or may not be progress made; and in which, therefore,
it is necessary to have a test of progress--a test which is to be found
in the fact that the individual is not merely a means, but an end.
Whether progress is made depends in part on whether there is the will
in man to move towards the end proposed; and that will is not uniformly
exercised, as is shown by the fact that deterioration as well as
advance takes place--regress occurs as well as progress; whole nations,
and those not small ones, may be arrested in their religious
development. If we look with the eye of the missionary over the globe,
everywhere we see arrested development, imperfect communion with God.
It may be that in such cases of imperfect communion there is an
unconscious or hardly conscious recognition that the form of religion
there and then prevalent does not suffice to afford the communion
desired. Or, worse still, and much more general, there is the belief
that such communion as does exist is all that can exist--that advance
and improvement are impossible. From {258} this state it has been the
work of the religious spirit to wake us, to reveal to us God's will, to
make us understand that it is within us, and that it may, if we will,
work within us. It is as such a revelation of the will of God and the
love of God, and as the manifestation of the personality of God, that
our Lord appeared on earth.

That appearance as a historic fact must take its place in the order of
historic events, and must stand in relation to what preceded and to
what followed and is yet to follow. In relation to what preceded,
Christianity claims "to be the fulfilment of all that is true in
previous religion" (Illingworth, _Personality: Human and Divine_, p.
75). The making of that claim assumes that there was some truth in
previous religion, that so far as previous forms were religious, they
were true--a fact that must constantly be borne in mind by the
missionary. The truth and the good inherent in all forms of