sometimes fail, in their sense of conscious security, to realise that they may be in and of the Body of Christ and yet not of His mind and Spirit. Thus they become paralysed members of His Body.

Membership in a Church so largely magnified by its priesthood, so potent in its organisation, so strongly and conspicuously formal and so rich in its symbolic significance, is ever in danger of being assumed and maintained as a substitute, rather than as a vital means of incorporating the soul into union with the life of God, and into close fellowship and conscious communion with Christ Himself. The term Churchman is not always the synonym of the term Christian. The Church may be writ large, and the Christ be but faintly inscribed in the consciousness of man.

These reflections do not constitute in any sense a charge against the Church as a wellordered organism, with outward and visible signs and means of grace. They simply point to the perils to which the priest and the people,

and especially the people, are exposed in view of the very perfect nature of the organisation. The more perfect the human side of a divine institution becomes, the more liable men are to substitute it for the divine. The glory of the temple obscured from materialistic-minded men the glory of God. The perfection of the manhood of our Master has obscured from many minds the divinity of which His manhood was but the incarnation. The foreground beauty may hide the background life and glory of which it is the manifestation. The frame may be made so golden, and so bejewelled that the eye will rest there and not see the beauty of the face upon the canvas.

It is possible for the Church to become so enamoured of her orders that she may fail to hear the orders of her Lord and Master. It is possible for her to rest so surely in the confidence of her rich possessions, and glorious heritage, that she may fail to hear the voice of her Lord in the cry of the world's need, calling her to Christlike humility of mind, and bid

ding her come down, as He did, to self-forgetful service, to be misjudged and crucified, that in the end He might be highly exalted, and given a Name above every name, and worshipped and adored as the Son of God who came down from heaven to be the Saviour and Lord of men.

We need to beware lest our position of exclusive aloofness is not born of pride, and the overconsciousness of power. The age is saying farreaching and deep-searching words about a new conception of divine rights. It is insisting that such claims be interpreted in terms of democracy, or else give way to a new order which shall be responsive to the elemental and imperious needs of the children of God of love, and to the leadership of His Spirit.

CHAPTER XXIX

WHAT WOULD BECOME OF THE
PRAYER BOOK?

HE good sense of the Church can be

THE

trusted to take care that the Book of Common Prayer shall continue to represent the normal position arrived at by successive generations. This has always been the case in the past. If extreme or radical views prevail at any time and become embodied in the authorised devotions of the Church, their permanent place in the liturgy will depend upon the test of their permanent worth in the experience of a living Church. There is no reason for one generation to become panic-stricken because of innovations or restrictions or alterations in the devotional expressions of the liturgy. The ship has passed

through seas as rough and storms as violent as any which are apt to lie ahead. If there be tempests that are worse, which must yet be met, we may be very sure that, if Christ remains at the helm, we will come to the haven where He would have us be. If He be forced to leave the helm by our insisting upon steering the ship, then the sooner she founders the better.

We should by all means make His task as easy as we can. There are surely none in the Church who would deliberately plan to do otherwise. We should more largely trust each other, and more earnestly endeavour to prove ourselves worthy of trust. By fairness and consideration; by forbearance and self-restraint; by honest candour of speech and humility of mind and heart; by seeking to keep every avenue of approach to God widely open, and thus refusing to lend our voice and influence to close any channel of grace through which divine love flows into human life; by thinking more humbly and loving more comprehensively; we will come into the possession of the spirit