ike this, and say,
I am, of course, an Apostolic Church, but I am not the only Church. I
have to learn from the Eastern Church something, and from the Church of
Rome something, but, above all, I have to learn that they are the
Apostolic Churches as well as I, and that I am, without them, too small
an island, and unable to resist alone the flood of patriotic and
imperialistic tendencies. And from the Protestants I have to learn to
put the living Christ above all doctrinal statements and liturgical
mysteries.

Or, if the Protestants of all classes would abandon their contemptuous
attitude towards so-called ecclesiasticism and ritualism, and criticise
themselves, saying: We have had too much confidence in human reason and
human words. Our worship is bare of every thing but the poor human
tongue. We have excluded Nature from our worship, though Nature is
purer, more innocent and worthier to come before the face of God than
men. We have been frightened by candles and incense, and vestments, and
signs, and symbols, and sacraments, but now we see that the mystery of
life and of our religion is too deep to be spoken out clearly in words
only. And we have been frightened by the episcopal administration of the
Church, but now we see that the episcopal system is a golden midway
between the papal and our extremes. Besides, we have gone too far in
our criticism of the Church tradition and of the Holy Scriptures. We
have to learn to abstain from calling the Eastern Church idolatrous and
the Roman Church tyrannical, and the Episcopal Church inconsistent. We
have our own idolatries (our idols are: individualism, human reason, and
the human word); and we have our own tyranny (the tyranny of criticism
and pride); and we have--thank god--our own inconsistencies.

Such a self-criticism would mean really a painful self-castigation,
because it would mean a reaction from a policy of criticism and
self-sufficiency which has lasted a thousand years, ever since the 16th
July 1054--the very fatal date when the Pope's delegates put an
Excommunication Bull on the altar of St Sophia's in Constantinople. The
primitive monks, who practised self-castigation because of the
world-evil, experienced a wonderful purification of soul, a new vision
of God, and an extraordinary sense of unity with all men, living and
dead. Well, that is just what the Church needs at present; a
purification, a new vision of God, and a sense of unity.