of men to their spiritual basis, all the changes are unable to contradict what is essential to Christianity, but they even promise to assist this essential element in its new, freer, and more energetic development.  But we have to bear in mind that all this will not descend upon us like a shower of rain, but will have to be brought forth through immense labour and toil.  It becomes necessary to replace that which must pass away, and to reconsolidate the essentials which are threatened.  All this cannot come about save through an energetic concentration and deepening of the spiritual life, save through a struggle against the superficiality of Time regardless of all consequences, and save through a vivification and integration of all that points in the right direction."[81]

[p.225] This passage illustrates well Eucken’s whole attitude regarding Christianity.  It is evident that much remains to be done within and without the Church.  Within, radical changes are to take place; but always in the light and with the preservation of the spiritual substance.  Without, the indifference of a vast portion of the civilised nations of the world has to be reckoned with.  It is an immense problem, often enough to dishearten good men and women.  How can men be moved from their inertia and their resentment against the deeper demands which spiritual life makes upon every human being?  That is the problem of problems and the task of tasks to-day.  No clear solution of it is yet perceptible.  But in the meantime, those who care for Divine things and who have experienced some of their power within their own souls must hold fast to all they possess, and labour unceasingly to increase the spiritual value of their possession.  Probably catastrophes have to happen in order to bring the world home to religion and God.

Rudolf Eucken’s gospel is a proclamation of the necessity of religion and the possibility of its possession.  This, according to him, is the final goal of all knowledge and life.  If religion is not this, it is the most tragic deception conceivable.  “Religion is either merely a sanctioned product of human wishes and pictorial ideas brought about by tradition and [p.226] the historical ordinance—­and, if so, no art, power, or cunning can prevent the destruction of such a bungling work by the advance of the mental and spiritual movement of the world; or religion is founded upon a superhuman fact—­and, if so, the hardest assaults cannot shatter it, but rather, it must finally prove of service in all the troubles and toils of man; it must reach the point of its true strength and develop purer and purer its Eternal Truth."[82]

The fact that the influence of Rudolf Eucken’s personality and teaching is spreading with such rapidity and power from west to east and from north to south is a proof that an increasing number of men and women are aspiring after a religion of spiritual life such as was presented by the Founder of our Christianity.  All the Life-systems of our day must converge towards such a conception of religion.