. . . as man develops in the way predestined by God, he will continually approach the standard set by Jesus.  Jesus will ever more completely draw men and inspire them because they will more fully understand that He explains them to themselves.

The present degradation of human life is due to man’s refusal to accept Christ’s estimate of its values and duties.  It will endure so long as the work and Person of Christ are refused their right place in human thought and aspiration.

     Jesus still lives, great and unexplained.

From these quotations it will be seen that Canon Barnes is not searching the documents of Christianity for a new hypothesis, but rather for a new understanding by which he may be able to present the historic power of Christianity in terms of modern thought.  Jesus remains for him the central Figure of evolution.  “Human thought,” he declares, “as moulded by developed aspirations and accumulated knowledge, will not sweep past Jesus but will circle round Him as the centre where God revealed Himself.”

Perhaps we shall best understand the position of Canon Barnes if we see him, neither on this side nor on that of the warring controversy, but rather among the entire host of Christianity, warning all schools of thought, all parties, all sects, that they must prepare themselves for the final strife which is yet to come, that great strife, foreseen by Newman, when the two contrary principles of human life, the Good and the Evil, shall rush upon each other contending for the soul of the world.  Christianity must become united and strong at its centre, if it is to withstand this onslaught.

He is not to be thought of as one who would adapt religion to the needs of the day, but as one who believes that, thoroughly understood, religion is adequate to the needs, not only of our day, but to the needs of all time.  For to Canon Barnes, religion is simply the teaching of Christ, and Christ is the revelation to man of God’s nature and purpose.  He would simplify dogma in order to clarify truth.  He would clarify truth in order to enlarge the opportunities of Christ.  He would call no man a heretic who is not serving the devil.  None who seeks to enter the Kingdom will ever be hindered by this devout disciple of truth in whose blood is no drop of the toxin of Pharisaism.

You may see the intellectual charity of the man in his attitude towards other teachers of our time whose views are opposed to his own.  Of Dean Inge he has spoken to me with almost a ringing enthusiasm, emphasizing his unbounded force, his unbounded courage; and of Bishop Gore with the deepest respect, paying reverent tribute to his spiritual earnestness; even the Bishop of Zanzibar provokes only a smile of the most cheerful good humour.

He inclines quietly towards optimism, believing in the providence of God and thinking that the recent indifference to religion is passing away.  Men are now seeking, and to seek is eventually to find.  This seeking, he observes, is among the latest utterances of theology, a fact of considerable importance.  To keep abreast of truth one must neither go back nor stand still.  Men are now not so much swallowing great names as looking for a candle.