ich was an addition to their simplicity was regarded by
them either as unnecessary, or even as idolatrous and false. Thus the
Presbyterian and Protestant Nonconformist Churches became isolated
islands.

But the more the morselling of Christianity went on, the more dangerous
became the raging ocean around it, so that now the Christian Archipelago
seems to be quite covered with the stormy waves. The Church, therefore,
is in an agony everywhere. Even if the Church had no responsibility upon
her shoulders for the present bloodshed in Europe, she would be in
agony, just because the whole Christian world is in agony, but much more
so because a great deal of responsibility for it must rest on her
shoulders.

SELF-CASTIGATION

The Christian monks of old used to castigate themselves when a great
plague came over the world. They used to consider themselves as the real
cause of the plague, and did not accuse anybody else. Well, this extreme
method ought to be used now by the Churches, for the good of mankind and
for their own good. It would be quite enough to bring the dawning of a
new day for Christianity if this self-castigation of the Churches were
only a self-criticism.

If, for instance, the Eastern Church would say: Although I have
preserved faithfully and unchangingly the most ancient traditions of
Christianity, still I have many faults and insufficiencies. I have much
to learn from the Roman Church, how to bring all my sections, all my
national and provincial branches into closer touch; and from Anglicanism
I have to learn the wonderful spirit of piety, expressed not only in old
times, but even in quite modern times through new prayers, new hymns,
new Psalms, added to the old ones; and from Protestantism I have to
learn the courage to look every day to the very heart of religion in its
simplest and most common expressions.

Or, if the Roman Church would use this self-criticism, saying: My
concentration is my strength and my weakness. Perhaps, after all, my
Pope is more a Caesaristic than a Christian Institution, making more for
worldly Imperialism than for the Spirituality of the world. I have to
learn from the Christian East more humility, and from Anglicanism more
respect for human freedom and social democracy, and from Protestantism a
more just appreciation of human efforts and results in science and
civilisation generally.

Or, if the Anglican Church would use self-criticism l