The New Theology Part 7

+Early Christian idea of the kingdom.+--An important fact, which I do not think is generally recognised, is that the first Christians thought almost precisely what the Jews did about the kingdom of G.o.d. Most people are accustomed to think of Christianity as having been from the first a religion which had princ.i.p.ally to do with getting men ready for the next world. We can hardly think about it apart from ecclesiastical buildings, choirs, baptisms, confirmations, prayers for the sick and dying, and so on. So much have we been accustomed to think of it in this way that the average man reads his New Testament with these a.s.sumptions in the background of his mind. But this is certainly not New Testament Christianity. The apostles and their followers believed like the Jews in the sudden establishment of an ideal commonwealth upon earth. This was how they understood the Lord's prayer, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." They did not even wish to separate from Judaism, and it is clear from Paul's letters that there was at one time a great danger that the new faith might become a mere Jewish sect. The Christians differed from the Jews, not in their ideal concerning the kingdom, but in their greater moral intensity and enthusiasm, as well as in their profound conviction that the Lord Jesus was G.o.d's chosen instrument for realising this kingdom, and that He would presently return to earth and do it. Any unbia.s.sed reader of the New Testament can see for himself that the primitive Christians lived in hourly expectation that this was what would happen. Of course they also believed in their Master's continual spiritual presence with them, but the dominant thought in their minds was that of a dramatic second coming and the inauguration of a reign of righteousness and universal peace, the making of a beautiful world, something like the Utopia of Mr. H. G. Wells. Nor was this altogether a delusion. If it had been, Christianity would soon have died. But, on the contrary, it lived and grew because of the great truth behind this belief, namely, that the Spirit of Christ working in the hearts of men is gradually producing this ideal kingdom in our midst. If, with this view of the character of early Christianity in our minds, we go afresh to the gospels or to the letters of Paul, we shall find it abundantly confirmed. There is no getting away from it. All the earnestness and enthusiasm of these first Christians were centred upon the belief in the near advent of a divine kingdom upon earth with Jesus as its head. This belief even affected the practice of these early Christians in regard to the disposal of their property. To understand this, let us put ourselves in their place and ask what we should do if we were possessed by the conviction that the whole existing social order might come to an end to-morrow morning or next week, and that after that no child of G.o.d would ever want for anything. I think we should be sure to feel that the holding of personal property would not matter much. If, in addition to this, our hearts were filled with a divine enthusiasm, an overmastering love for Jesus and for all our brethren, we should not want to keep anything back that could serve to make anyone happier for the short time that intervened before the glorious coming of the Lord.

This was just how the primitive Christians felt. They had no organised economic system; no one was compelled to give anything, but under the pressure of the new spirit they willingly gave everything. What did it matter? they thought; they were only like pilgrims within sight of home, or watchers waiting for the morning.

+Origin of the idea of the church.+--Where, then, did the idea of the church come from? It is as plain as anything can be that the primary interest of early Christianity was the kingdom of G.o.d. It took the conception over from Judaism with a deeper moral content derived from the preaching and the life of Jesus. Its first adherents did not even know that they had a new religion; they only thought they had found the true Messiah, although the Jewish nation as a whole had rejected Him.

What they wanted above everything was to see the kingdom come upon earth, and we now know that they were mistaken in imagining that it would be established speedily and suddenly by the visible second coming of Jesus on the clouds of heaven. But seeing that they were thinking of it in this way, how did the church arise and why?

It is doubtful if Jesus ever used the word "church," for the two verses in Matthew in which He is credited with it are probably of late date and point to a time when the ecclesiastical organisation was fairly well established. Still the word itself has an interest and a history of its own apart from its Christian use. The _ecclesia_, as most of my readers may be aware, was the a.s.sembly of the citizens of any Greek city-state. It was the custom for the whole body of the members of a Greek self-governing community to be called together from time to time for the transaction of public business. This a.s.sembly was the final authority in matters affecting the communal welfare, and even after the various Greek states became absorbed in the Roman empire this custom was allowed to continue. It was the policy of the Romans to permit a large measure of self-government to their subjects of any alien race, and therefore the _ecclesia_ of any particular city-state continued to be summoned as usual to decide upon matters of local importance. There is a reference to this in the nineteenth chapter of the Acts, where we read that the preaching of Christianity in Ephesus caused a riot which the town clerk--a thoroughly typical town clerk!--succeeded in allaying by reminding the demonstrators that if they had any real cause for complaint, the matter ought to come before the regular _ecclesia_.

This properly const.i.tuted _ecclesia_ to which the level-headed town clerk referred was the general a.s.sembly of the citizens for the transaction of public business.

It was quite natural that the primitive Christians should have come to adopt this word, and to an extent this very idea, as a convenient description of the new Christian community. After the departure of their Master the Christians held together, and wherever their missionaries went, new communities sprang up, animated by a spirit of loyalty to Jesus and a desire to realise His ideal for mankind. It was quite natural, too, that the apostles should recognise all these communities as being in reality one community for fellows.h.i.+p of faith and love; it was the _ecclesia_, or a.s.sembly, or society of Jesus, the beginning of the church of Christ, as it soon came to be called. There was no elaborate organisation; nothing could have been simpler. Every Christian seems to have thought that as it would not be long before the Master came again, the wise and right thing to do was for His followers to hold together and witness Him to the world, until that great event took place.

+Church only exists for the sake of the kingdom.+--But how far did Jesus foresee and intend this? It is difficult to say, but his choice of twelve apostles whom He carefully trained to continue His work is evidence that He contemplated the formation of some kind of society to give effect to His teaching. The number twelve points to the probability that He thought of this society as a kind of new Israel, a spiritual Israel, which should do for the world what the older Israel had failed to do, that is, bring about the kingdom of G.o.d. I have already pointed out that in my judgment Jesus did not believe, as His contemporaries did, that that kingdom could be established suddenly from without, but held that it could only be achieved by spiritual forces working from within. His _ecclesia_ has lived and grown. It has survived for nineteen centuries, and is likely to survive for many centuries more. It has played a leading part in the making of modern civilisation. But it is no longer a unity, and many different theories exist as to its meaning and worth.

_The sacerdotal theory._--Broadly speaking, however, there are two outstanding views as to the scope and function of the _ecclesia_, or church of Jesus. One is the sacerdotal, and the other is what, for want of a better name, I may term the evangelical. In outline the former is as follows: before Jesus finally withdrew His bodily presence from His disciples He formally const.i.tuted a religious society to represent Him on earth. This society was to be the ark of salvation, the "sphere of covenanted grace." Its princ.i.p.al work was to call men out of a lost and ruined world and secure for them a blessed immortality; those who were members of this church, and only they, were certain of heaven. Members.h.i.+p therein was clearly defined; the gateway was baptism. Those who were baptized in a proper way, even though they were unconscious infants, were members of the church of Christ and all others were outside. Within this sacred society souls were to be trained in rightness of living, and, to an extent, made fit for heaven.

The Holy Spirit abiding in this society would sanctify the individual members and guide them into all the truth. It is even held that Jesus definitely appointed the way in which this church was to be governed.

Its affairs were to be managed by a threefold order,--bishops, priests, and deacons. But here a division has taken place amongst the sacerdotalists themselves owing to the necessity of finding some final authority, some living voice, within this visible society to which appeal in the last resort could be made. Romanists have found this in the bishop of Rome whom they regard as the episcopal successor of the apostle Peter. Devout Anglicans take their stand upon the faith as defined by the first four general Councils, while in administrative matters they regard the bishop as independent. The Greek church also insists upon its autonomy.

This sacerdotal view has exercised enormous influence in Christian history, and I have sufficient of the historic imagination to be able to say that at certain times it has undoubtedly worked on the whole for good. But did Jesus really found a church of this kind? I am quite sure He never thought of such a thing, and historical criticism of Christian origins does not leave the sacerdotalist much to stand on.

Jesus appointed neither bishop nor priest, and never ordained that any merely mechanical ceremony should be the means of admission to the Christian society or be necessary to the eternal welfare of anyone. In the early church the bishop or elder was the president of the little Christian society meeting in any particular locality. Primitive Christian organisation was anything but rigid and formal, and was as far as possible from the sacerdotal model. I do not say that the sacerdotal mode of organisation which gradually grew up was wholly mischievous, nor do I say that the primitive Christian organisation would be the best under all circ.u.mstances. All I maintain is that in founding His new society Jesus did not ordain any particular form of organisation.

+The evangelical theory.+--The other view of the meaning of the word "church" to which I have already referred, is that it is the totality of the followers of Jesus. Under this view organisation is a secondary matter. There are many reasons why Christian societies should organise themselves differently from one another. Temperament plays a great part in the matter. But theories of church government have ceased to be the burning questions that they once were. Most sensible men are now satisfied that forms of government matter much less than the kind of life which flourishes in the society itself.

+What the church exists for to-day.+--But what does the church exist for, using the word in its primitive sense? What ought it to exist for to-day? What is the justification for all the vast number of Christian organisations which exist throughout the world? This is a subject upon which a clear note needs to be sounded, for a great deal of mental confusion exists in regard to it. Two inconsistent views of the work of the church, as well as of the const.i.tution of the church, have come down the ages together and exist side by side in the world to-day. The first is that the chief business of the church is to s.n.a.t.c.h men as brands from the burning and get them ready for a future heaven. The Fall theory has had much to do with this. The a.s.sumption behind it is, as we have seen, that the world is a City of Destruction, as Bunyan calls it. It is a ruined world, a world which has somehow baffled and disappointed G.o.d, a failure of a world which, when the cup of its iniquity is full, will be utterly destroyed as a general judgment.

When that dreadful day comes it will be bad for all those who are outside the fellows.h.i.+p of Christ, for, like those who have died without availing themselves of the means of salvation, they will be relegated to everlasting torment in the world unseen. This view of the fate of the world as being at enmity with G.o.d, and of the duty of the church to persuade as many as possible to believe something or other in order to secure salvation in a future and better world, has been held by sacerdotalists and non-sacerdotalists, Catholics and Protestants alike.

It is still implied in most of our preaching and in the hymns we sing.

I admit that there is a certain truth in it, the truth that man is const.i.tuted for immortality and ought not to live as if this world were all that mattered. But on the whole, it has been thoroughly mischievous, and there is nothing which is acting as a greater hindrance to the spirituality and usefulness of the churches to-day.

It is based on an entirely false idea as to the relation of G.o.d and the world.

+To save the world.+--But alongside of this view a far higher and n.o.bler one has been present to the minds of Christians in every century, namely, that the work of the church is to save the world and to believe that it is worth the saving. If what I have already said be true, this is the idea which was in the mind of Jesus when He founded His _ecclesia_. To Him the purpose of the _ecclesia_ was to help to realise the kingdom of G.o.d by preaching and living the fellows.h.i.+p of love. Ever since His day those who have been nearest to Him in spirit have been going forth into the dark places of the earth trying to win men to the realisation of the great ideal of a universal fellows.h.i.+p of love based on a common relations.h.i.+p to the G.o.d and Father of us all.

This is what Augustine aimed at in his City of G.o.d. It was what Ambrose had in mind when he excommunicated the emperor Theodosius for having ordered a cruel ma.s.sacre of some of his rebellious subjects. It was the ideal of the mighty Hildebrand, grim and arrogant though he was, when he compelled princes to bow their haughty necks and do justice to the weak. It was what Bernard of Clairvaux meant to declare when he defied the cruel and sensual king of France to approach the altar of Christ. Savonarola realised it for a brief moment in Florence, Calvin in Geneva, the Covenanters in Scotland, the Puritans in England, the Pilgrim Fathers in America. They all failed because the world can never be saved by the imposition of ideal inst.i.tutions from without and by force; it can only be by the spirit of Christ working from within. But to some extent they all succeeded, too, for the world is a better place to live in because of the gradual and c.u.mulative redemptive effort of the Christian _ecclesia_, the Church of Jesus. On the other side of the ledger we have to set many things that ecclesiasticism has done,--cruel persecutions, infamous tortures, burnings and ma.s.sacres, devastating wars, and fierce religious hatreds.

But these things have never belonged to Jesus; they are the very negation of His spirit. The true church of Christ in any and every age consists of those and those only who are trying like their Master to make the world better and gladder and worthier of G.o.d. The word "church" has become so hateful to many because of the admixture of other ideals with this that I sometimes wish something could be done either to get rid of it or to change it for another which shall fully and clearly express what Jesus really came to do. I maintain that the church has nothing whatever to do with preparing men for a world to come; the best way to prepare a man for the world beyond is to get him to live well and truly in this one. The church exists to make the world a kingdom of G.o.d, and to fill it with His love. No greater mistake could be made than to estimate the church of Jesus by ecclesiastical squabbles and divisions, or even by Psalm-singing and go-to-meeting talk. Look for the spirit of Jesus at work, and you have found the church too.

+Modern industrialism and the church.+--Judged by this standard where are the churches to-day? We have seen that the only gospel which Jesus had to preach was the gospel of the kingdom of G.o.d; everything He ever said can be included under that head. His Church, or Christian society, or whatever else we like to call it, has no meaning unless it exists for the realisation of the kingdom of G.o.d. We cannot state this too strongly. The whole of the other-worldism of the churches, the elaborate paraphernalia of doctrine and observance, is utterly useless and worse than useless unless it ministers to this end. Unless it can be shown that I am wrong in this supposition--and I think that will be pretty hard to do--a fairly good case could be made out for burning down most of the theological colleges in the land and sending the bright young fellows in them to do some serious work for the common good. For it must be confessed, as I said at the beginning, that the churches are to a large extent a failure. We cannot but recognise, for one thing, that our modern civilisation, with all its boasted advance on the past, is still un-Christian. It puts a premium upon selfishness. Modern industrialism is cruel and unjust and directly incites men to self-seeking. The weak and unfortunate have to go to the wall; little mercy is shown to the man who is not strong enough to fight his way and keep his footing in the struggle for existence. We are all the time making war upon one another,--man against man, business against business, cla.s.s against cla.s.s, nation against nation.

We talk of our freedom, but no man is really free, and the great majority of us are slaves to some corporation, or capitalist, or condition of things, which renders the greater part of life a continuous anxiety lest health or means should fail and we should prove unequal to the demands made upon us. If a man goes under, his acquaintances will pity him for five minutes and then forget all about him. There is no help for it; they cannot do anything else, they have their own living to get. They are like soldiers in the heat of battle; they must not pause to mourn over a fallen comrade or they may soon be stretched beside him. I do not mean, of course, to make the foolish statement that present-day industrialism is unrestrainedly individualistic: thank G.o.d it is not that. But the principle of compet.i.tion still exercises a sway so potent as to stamp modern social organisation as un-Christian. We may just as well recognise that fact and state it plainly. The glaringly unequal owners.h.i.+p of material wealth is anti-social; it is good neither for the rich man nor for the poor, for it is to the interest of every man that the body politic should be healthy and happy. That so large a number of our total population should have to exist upon the very margin of subsistence is a moral wrong. We have no business to have any slums, or sweating dens, or able-bodied unemployed, or paupers. Poverty, dulness of brain, and coa.r.s.eness of habit are often found in close a.s.sociation.

Some amount of material endowment is required even for the development of the intelligence and the training of the moral faculties. Wealth possesses no value in itself; it only possesses value as a means to more abundant life. If there is one thing upon which Christianity insists more than another, it is the duty of caring for the weak and sinful, but at present this duty is only recognised to a very limited extent.

+Christianity and Collectivism.+--In what I am now saying I am well aware that I have come to a phase of my subject which thousands of my countrymen are stating so clearly and forcibly as to compel attention; but what I want to show is that the present unideal condition of the civilised world is an indictment of the churches and their conventional doctrines. We seem to have forgotten our origin. I have long felt, as I suppose every Christian minister must feel, the antagonism between the Christian standard of conduct and that required in ordinary business life. There is no blinking the fact that the standard of Christ and the standard of the commercial world are not the same. Our work is to make them the same, and to that end we must destroy the social system which makes selfishness the rule and compels a man to act upon his lower motives, and we must put a better in its place. We must establish a social order wherein a man can be free to be his best, and to give his best to the community without crus.h.i.+ng or destroying anyone else. In a word we want Collectivism in the place of compet.i.tion; we want the kingdom of G.o.d. Charity is no remedy for our social ills and their moral outcome; the only remedy is a new social organisation on a Christian basis. I do not believe that any form of Collectivism, as a mere system superposed from without, can ever really make the world happy; it must be the expression of the spirit of brotherhood working from within. Neither do I feel much faith in any sudden and cataclysmic reformation of society. The history of Christendom proves that no inst.i.tution can be much in advance of human nature and survive.

Covenanters and Puritans found that out when they tried to make men G.o.dly by Act of Parliament; Savonarola found it out when the wild pa.s.sions of the Florentines, restrained for a brief hour, broke their chains and destroyed him; the Christians of New Testament times found it out when their beautiful experiment of social brotherhood came to an end in the horror and darkness of the break-up of Jewish national life.

But at least we can recognise the presence of the guiding Spirit of G.o.d in all our social concerns and work along with it for the realisation of the ideal of universal brotherhood. We can show men what Jesus really came to do, and, as His servants, we can help Him to do it. We can definitely recognise that the movement toward social regeneration is really and truly a spiritual movement, and that it must never be captured by materialism. I deplore the fact that, for the moment, the main current of the great Labour movement which, perhaps more than any other, represents the social application of the Christian ideal, should appear to be out of touch with organised religion. This cannot continue, for I observe that the men who lead it are men of moral pa.s.sion, and often men of simple religious faith. It could hardly be otherwise. It seems to me in the nature of things impossible to sustain a belief in the moral ideal without some kind of belief in G.o.d, and a.s.suredly G.o.d is with these men in the work they are doing and have yet to do. In fact, the Labour Party is itself a Church, in the sense in which that word was originally used, for it represents the getting-together of those who want to bring about the kingdom of G.o.d.

+The New Theology and Collectivism.+--The New Theology, as I understand it, is the theology of this movement, whether the movement knows it or not, for it is essentially the gospel of the kingdom of G.o.d. No lesser theology can consistently claim to be this; systems of belief which are weighted by dogmatic considerations have not and cannot have the same power of appeal. This higher, wider truth, which sweeps away the mischievous accretions which have made religion distasteful to the ma.s.ses, is religious articulation of the movement toward an ideal social order. This fact ought to be realised and brought home to the consciousness of the earnest men who are labouring to redeem England and the world from the power of all that tortures and degrades humanity and stifles or destroys its best life.

This, then, is the mission of the New Theology. It is to brighten and keep burning the flame of the spiritual ideal in the midst of the mighty social movement which is now in progress. It is ours to see G.o.d in it and help mankind to see Him too. It is ours to show what the gospel really is and has been from the first. We shall not suffer the world any longer to believe that Christianity and dogma mean the same thing. Our business is to show that the religion of Jesus is primarily a gospel for this life and only secondarily for the life to come. We have to demonstrate that material things have spiritual meanings, and that wealth has value only as it ministers to soul power. We have to make clear to the world that the reason why we want to lift any man up and give him a chance of a better and happier life here is because he has an immortal destiny and must make a beginning somewhere if he is to reach the stature of the perfect man at last. We believe that faith is the one indispensable qualification for this work, as for any work that is worth the doing, or ever has been worth the doing, in the history of mankind. It is the victory that overcometh the world.

CHAPTER XIV

CONCLUSION

+A personal word.+--The task which has occupied the greater part of my winter resting time has now been accomplished, as far as opportunity affords. What has been said in these pages is no more than an outline statement of the teaching which has been given from the City Temple pulpit ever since I came into it. There is not a single thought in this book with which my own people are not already quite familiar, and chapter and verse for it can be produced from my published sermons which have been appearing week by week for years past in the _Christian Commonwealth_ and other periodicals. If s.p.a.ce had permitted, I should like to have said much more, for necessarily many phases of the subject have had to be left untouched; it has only been possible to deal with those of fundamental importance. For example, I should like to have included some examination of the great question of Miracles, the place of Prayer in Christian experience, and the value and significance of Biblical Criticism. But as it has not been possible to do this I must add a word or two to indicate my position in regard to these matters.

+Miracle.+--It seems probable that before long we shall see a rehabilitation of belief in the credibility of certain kinds of miracle, and that this rehabilitation will proceed from the side of psychical science. Already there are signs that this rehabilitation is on the way. The power of mind over matter is being recognised for therapeutic purposes, for instance, in a way hitherto undreamed of, and is receiving a large and increasing measure of attention from the medical profession. This appears to me to throw a considerable amount of light upon the healing ministry of Jesus, which, as the late Professor A. B. Bruce has pointed out, rests upon as good historical ground as the best-accredited parts of the teaching. Given a time and a mental atmosphere in which men expected miracles of this sort, and given a personality of such wonderful magnetic force as that of Jesus, such miracles would be sure to happen. That they did not happen apart from such conditions is evident from such hints as the statement that, "He could do no mighty works there because of their unbelief." There are other kinds of miracle recorded in scripture which are not so easily credible, but I am not always prepared to brush them aside as mere childish fancies. As a rule it will be found that they belong to the poetry of religious experience, and that some valuable truth is contained in this particular form of statement. To this order belong the accounts about the horses and chariots of fire on the hillside round about Elisha, the whirlwind in which Elijah ascended to heaven, and Jesus walking on the sea. These accounts are forms in which the oriental imagination is, even to-day, wont to clothe truths too great for prosaic statement; they are poetry, not history, and the western mind ought to make allowance for the fact. Sometimes we can discern in scripture records of an event, which to the stolid western imagination seems utterly incredible, a genuine historical truth. Such, for instance, are the pa.s.sage of the Red Sea--a stirring and dramatic incident, thoroughly well told--and Joshua commanding the sun and moon to stand still. In the latter case we have two lines of poetry from a book which has been lost, and a comparison with similar poetry in almost any literature gives us a clew to its meaning. The poet represents the old warrior as declaring in magnificent style that the sun of Israel shall not go down, and that day and night shall be alike to him until her enemies are discomfited. Any reader with a shred of sympathetic imagination ought to be able to feel the force of the sentiment which provoked this utterance without either accepting or rejecting it as a literal statement of fact; the best things which have been written in the books of the world are seldom literal and exact statements of fact. It has been well pointed out that myth and legend are truer than history, for they take us to the inside of things, whereas history only shows us the outside.

+Prayer.+--Prayer is a vital necessity to religious experience, and without it no religious experience has ever existed or ever can. It is not primarily pet.i.tion but communion with G.o.d. Our intercourse with our friends does not chiefly consist in asking them for things! But when communion does become pet.i.tion, there is a real place for it as well as for the answer to such prayer. It is not too much to say that no true prayer has ever gone without its answer. This is quite consistent with the a.s.sertion that prayer does not change G.o.d; it only affords Him opportunity. It is impossible to improve on what G.o.d already desires for us before we pray, but upon our prayer depends the realisation of that desire. Everything that the soul can possibly need is present beforehand in the eternal reality, and the prayer of faith is like going into a treasure-house and bringing forth from what is contained therein all that the soul needs day by day. Prayer, therefore, cannot be too definite, but it should be as unselfish as the wors.h.i.+pper can make it in order that the highest can operate in response. The same law holds good in this as in all other activities of the soul; selfishness draws away from the source of life, whereas love is instantly at one with infinity. I question whether many people realise the enormous value of definite and systematic prayer; it is the secret of all spiritual power. Everything that we can possibly want is waiting for us in the bounty of G.o.d, and what we have to do is to go and take it. "Believe that ye have received them and ye shall have them."

+The Bible and the young.+--One thing that urgently needs to be done for the young people in our Sunday-schools and various Christian societies all over the world is to issue a series of well-written popular manuals presenting in succinct form the best results of Biblical Criticism. The way the Bible is taught to young people at present is most regrettable, for in after years it leads them to doubt and distrust the very foundations of Christianity. If the teachers only had a little more intelligent acquaintance with the sources of the scriptures, this danger would be avoided and the Bible would become a far more interesting and helpful book both to young and old. At present it is interpreted by many people in a way which is an insult to the intelligence and harmful to the moral sense. Will anyone seriously maintain that the trickeries of Jacob and the butcheries following the Israelitish invasion of Canaan, not to speak of the obscenities which are to be found in so many parts of the Old Testament, are healthy reading for children or a mark of divine inspiration? Is it not time we adopted the more excellent way of facing the truth about the Bible records and presenting what is valuable in such a way as to help and not to hinder the growth of a true knowledge of the relations of G.o.d and man?

In conclusion, let me say emphatically that no one but myself is responsible for a single word in this book. Among the many wild and unjust criticisms which have been published concerning my views, none is wider of the mark than that I have borrowed from this man or that in my statement of them. I am not conscious of owing a scintilla of my theology to any living man. In so far as it coincides with anyone else's views I am thankful, for it shows that the same eternal Spirit of Truth is speaking to others than myself. But I hope I may be permitted to say with due humility that in thinking out my position, "I conferred not with flesh and blood." Perhaps some people will maintain that this makes my teaching all the worse, but if so I cannot help it.

It can hardly be denied that in its main bearing, to say no more, it is seen to be rising spontaneously in every part of the civilised world.

Again, no thinker can ever succeed in completely closing the circle of his system of thought, and I cannot claim to be an exception. But I trust it will be seen that what is contained in this book is at least a self-consistent whole: every arc of the circle implies every other. It only remains to reiterate my conviction that the movement represented by the New Theology is only incidentally theological at all; it is primarily a moral and spiritual movement. It is one symptom of a great religious awakening which in the end will re-inspire civilisation with a living faith in G.o.d and the spiritual meaning of life. If what I am trying to do can contribute in any way toward this grand result, I shall be humbly thankful to the Giver of all good.