er: what part worship plays in our salvation (the
problem known in theology as opus operatum)? Or another: what should be
the normal relation of the Church and State, the Church and social life,
the Church and education, the Church and the manifold needs and
tribulations of mankind?

All these problems, and many others here unmentioned, moved every part
of the Christian Church in the East and West. Your Church history too is
full of a moving and dramatic struggle for light in all these problems,
from the day when the first Roman missionaries brought the new Gospel to
your country up to our days.

The Church, inclusive in wisdom, has had the most dramatic history in
the world. Struggling against Patriotism, she pleaded for humanity; and
struggling against Imperialism, she pleaded for spirituality. And again:
struggling against heretics, she pleaded for unity, and struggling
against worldly philosophers, she pleaded for a sacred and pragmatic
wisdom. She looked sometimes defeated and on her knees before her
enemies, but she rose again and again like the phoenix from its ashes.
In her dramatic struggle through the world and against the world the
internal voice of her Founder comforted and inspired her. The harder
struggles she fought the louder was the comforting and inspiring voice.
The more comfortable she made herself in this world, the less was His
magic voice heard. His life was a scheme of her life: his crucifixion
and resurrection a prophecy of her history to the world's end. Whenever
she became satisfied with herself and with the world around her she was
overshadowed and eclipsed. Whenever she feared struggle and suffering
she became sick, on the dying bed. He then stood, meek and sorrowful, at
her bed and called: Arise, my daughter!

The Church's craving for comfort is indeed her craving for death. Like a
noble knight who descends into a prison to liberate the enchained
slaves, to whom the prison is painful and liberation still more painful,
so is the Church's position in this world. But how regrettable should it
be if the noble knight accommodated himself in the prison among the
slaves and forgot the light from which he had descended and to which he
ought to return! "He is one of ourselves," the slaves will say. So might
say to-day all the worldly institutions about the Christian Church in
this valley of slavery: "She is one of ourselves." She is destined to
quicken the world end, and she is postponing it. One