idea of education for the masses had come; but the Church herself —­through ignorance—­had opposed the growth of education, had set her face sternly against the development of the individual, which Christ had taught, the privilege of man to use the faculties of the intellect which God had bestowed upon him.  He himself, their rector, had advocated a catholic acceptance, though much modified from the mediaeval acceptance, —­one that professed to go behind it to an earlier age.  Yes, he must admit with shame that he had been afraid to trust where God trusted, had feared to confide the working out of the ultimate Truth of the minds of the millions.

The Church had been monarchical in form, and some strove stubbornly and blindly to keep her monarchical.  Democracy in government was outstripping her.  Let them look around, to-day, and see what was happening in the United States of America.  A great movement was going on to transfer actual participation in government from the few to the many, —­a movement towards true Democracy, and that was precisely what was about to happen in the Church.  Her condition at present was one of uncertainty, transition—­she feared to let go wholly of the old, she feared to embark upon the new.  Just as the conservatives and politicians feared to give up the representative system, the convention, so was she afraid to abandon the synod, the council, and trust to man.

The light was coming slowly, the change, the rebirth of the Church by gradual evolution.  By the grace of God those who had laid the foundations of the Church in which he stood, of all Protestantism, had built for the future.  The racial instinct in them had asserted itself, had warned them that to suppress freedom in religion were to suppress it in life, to paralyze that individual initiative which was the secret of their advancement.

The new Church Universal, then, would be the militant, aggressive body of the reborn, whose mission it was to send out into the life of the nation transformed men and women who would labour unremittingly for the Kingdom of God.  Unity would come—­but unity in freedom, true Catholicity.  The truth would gradually pervade the masses—­be wrought out by them.  Even the great evolutionary forces of the age, such as economic necessity, were acting to drive divided Christianity into consolidation, and the starving churches of country villages were now beginning to combine.

No man might venture to predict the details of the future organization of the united Church, although St. Paul himself had sketched it in broad outline:  every worker, lay and clerical, labouring according to his gift, teachers, executives, ministers, visitors, missionaries, healers of sick and despondent souls.  But the supreme function of the Church was to inspire—­to inspire individuals to willing service for the cause, the Cause of Democracy, the fellowship of mankind.  If she failed to inspire, the Church would wither and perish.  And therefore she must revive again the race of inspirers, prophets, modern Apostles to whom this gift was given, going on their rounds, awaking cities and arousing whole country-sides.