of suggestion, sympathy and imitation; and only reach full development when assembled in groups, giving full opportunity for the benevolent action of these forces.  So too in the life of the Spirit, incorporation plays a part which nothing can replace.  Goodness and devotion are more easily caught than taught; by association in groups, holy and strong souls—­both living and dead—­make their full gift to society, weak, undeveloped, and arrogant souls receive that of which they are in need.  On this point we may agree with a great ecclesiastical scholar of our own day that “the more the educated and intellectual partake with sympathy of heart in the ordinary devotions and pious practices of the poor, the higher will they rise in the religion of the Spirit."[124]

Yet this family life of the ideal religious institution, with its reasonable and bracing discipline, its gift of shelter, its care for tradition, its habit-formation and group consciousness—­all this is given, as we may as well acknowledge, at the price which is exacted by all family life; namely, mutual accommodation and sacrifice, place made for the childish, the dull, the slow, and the aged, a toning-down of the somewhat imperious demands of the entirely efficient and clear-minded, a tolerance of imperfection.  Thus for these efficient and clear-minded members there is always, in the church as in the family, a perpetual opportunity of humility, self-effacement, gentle acceptance; of exerting that love which must be joined to power and a sound mind if the full life of the Spirit is to be lived.  In the realm of the supernatural this is a solid gain; though not a gain which we are very quick to appreciate in our vigorous youth.  Did we look upon the religious institution not as an end in itself, but simply as fulfilling the function of a home—­giving shelter and nurture, opportunity of loyalty and mutual service on one hand, conserving stability and good custom on the other—­then, we should better appreciate its gifts to us, and be more merciful to its necessary defects.  We should be tolerant to its inevitable conservatism, its tendency to encourage dependence and obedience to distrust individual initiative.  We should no longer expect it to provide or specially to approve novelty and freedom, to be in the van of life’s forward thrust.  For this we must go not to the institution, which is the vehicle of history; but to the adventurous, forward moving soul, which is the vehicle of progress—­to the prophet, not to the priest.  These two great figures, the Keeper and the Revealer, which are prominent in every historical religion, represent the two halves of the fully-lived spiritual life.  The progress of man depends both on conserving and on exploring:  and any full incorporation of that life which will serve man’s spiritual interests now, must find place for both.

Such an application of the institutional idea to present needs is required, in fact, to fulfil at least four primary conditions:—­