XIII
"When he has come—the Spirit of Truth—he will guide you into all the truth." That will be in the course of our race-development. As step is added to step, as milestone is passed after milestone, as we see more clearly what counts and what doesn't count, as we outgrow childishness, as we come more nearly to what St. Paul calls "mature manhood, the stature of full-grown men in Christ,"[22] we shall do many things that now seem impossible. Among them I think we shall view intersectarian arrogance as a mark of enfeebled intelligence. There will come an era of ecclesiastical climbing down. We shall see more distinctly our own segment of the arc which our Lord has revealed, and because of that we shall know that another man sees what we have missed. The Methodist will then acknowledge that he has much to learn from the Catholic; the Catholic will know the same of the Baptist; the Anglican of the Presbyterian; the Unitarian of the Anglican; and a co-operative universe be reflected in a co-operative Church. Each will lose something of his present cocksureness and exclusiveness. God will be seen as too big for any sect, while all the sects together will sink out of sight in God.
In the meantime we are only working toward that end, but toward it we are working. Every man who believes in a church is doing something to bring that end about when he gives a kindly thought to any other church. I say this the more sincerely owing to the fact that I myself am naturally bigoted, and such kindly thought does not come to me easily. There are sects I dislike so much that my eyes jump from the very paragraphs in the newspapers which mention them. And yet when I curb myself, when I force myself to read them, when I force myself to read them sympathetically and with a good wish in my heart, my mental atmosphere grows wider and I am in a stronger, surer, steadier, and more fearless world.
Much criticism has been levelled at the Church within the past few years; but it should be remembered that the Church no more than government, no more than business, no more than education, can be ahead of the only partially developed race of which she is one of the expressions. She is not yet out of the world of matter, though she is emerging. In proportion as her concepts, hopes, and aims remain material she will be as incompetent as any other body with the same handicaps and limitations. In proportion as she learns to "overthrow arrogant reckonings and every stronghold that towers high in defiance of the knowledge of God,"[23] she will become the leader of the world, and our great deliverer from fear.