What the Church Means to Me | Page 4

the Church grades her preachers wrongly. There is no failure of Christ's aims. His message is bearing fruit in the hearts of many men whom the-necessary-to-define-your-mental-attitude school would rule out of the kingdom. Even Elijah made a mistake in the matter of how many servants God had.
USEFULNESS THE SUPREME TEST
These divisions of the Church mean to me cargo vessels, and if for any reason they can't carry, they should go out of commission. If one is beyond repair or the type has been superseded, it should go out permanently. We continue to run old three-deckers for fighting battles, or Columbian caravels for freighting purposes. It appears to some to cause a temporary setback to fighting efficiency to send a once serviceable ship to the scrap heap, but it is the best and cheapest in the end. In the North Sea fishery I saw hundreds of sailing craft that had helped to make fortunes, that had kept the markets full, and that still had years of life, laid up, and then sold practically for old junk. Why? Simply because swift steam-trawlers had been found to do the work better.
These sub-organizations, as far as I am concerned, are existing merely to help men to work in the spiritual field. They are not like some yachts, just to carry bunting and paint to be admired. As for church affiliation, what I like to see is a hungry man going where he will be fed and get strength. I trust it does not seem flippant to say that I look on all church organizations in the same way, and that the tradition of a long past suggests to me the inefficiency of a dotage, quite as much as the stimulating aroma of potency which, as in the case of some wines, can only be acquired by the lapse of time. Some will say that this Modernism has no sense of obligation, no sense of veneration, makes no allowance for the idiosyncrasies of others. Well, that may be so. I may plead, on the contrary, that what we call the ancient Church was the youthful Church. The Church of the twentieth century is the ancient, grown-up Church.
THE BUILDING ITSELF, PRO AND CON
Experience has convinced me that bricks and mortar and sectarian loyalty have more often been hindrances than helps to that expression of faith in him which Jesus looks for in our lives. I admit I have not lived long enough in one place fully to appreciate the possibilities for stimulus and help this tying up into bundles can afford. On the other hand, I feel so certain that buildings set aside for public worship are essential in every place, that where none exists I feel wretched, and I have shares in quite a number all along our Labrador coast.
I love to wander through an ancient edifice in which generations of men have come and worshiped and found help and comfort. I like looking at the Viking ship, but I don't want to cross the Atlantic in it. Personally, I like to hear, to see, and to understand. The dim religious light and sonorous sounds do not waken me to a keener sense of the call of God to be up and doing. They just make me sleepy. Besides being difficult as a rule to hear, there is too much around to distract my attention. I don't think Westminster Abbey helps me personally to attend to the service. On the contrary, I think it makes me think of the building. I used somehow to imagine that service in the open air was necessarily associated with cant. Now I like it far the best. Not merely because it is more sanitary--till some one learns how to ventilate a building decently--but because it absolutely forces you to feel insignificant, and anxious that the great Creator should condescend to care about a mosquito like you. Moreover, I have often noticed out in the open a unity between those of different sects that was perfectly delightful. Meanwhile I am not unmindful that in many, if not in all, a deep inborn spiritual craving, no child of philosophy, is a powerful factor in helping men Godward. Also that many find their only help in authority and the faith of others. All these the Church has to provide for. It is no easy task to be prophet and conservative custodian at the same time.
THE NEW AND BETTER SPIRIT
One great trouble with tying one's self to any one church, from my peripatetic point of view, has always been the fact that so many other churches say, "If you are not one of us, you are against us." It is almost too personal to illustrate this from my own somewhat sad experience in my early days, but every worker in wide fields must