Chapter XXII. — [355]
The End.
Preface.
'Go ye and preach to all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.'
This was the last injunction of Jesus Christ to His Apostles.
Universality is therefore the first principle and ultimate aim of Christianity. It has been designed for and is intended to become, in fundamental belief, the religion of the universe.
The Universality of Christianity in fundamental belief is accompanied by Diversity in institutions and forms of worship, which are secondary and external developments; for this Diversity is the inevitable result of difference of place, of time, of degrees of civilization, and of all those events which mould the destiny and constitute the history of nations.
When the Apostles were commanded to instruct all nations 'in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,' they also received the gift of tongues. This gift, which was a consequence of the Diversity of their means and methods of instruction, also bore witness to it, and at the same time manifested the Unity and Universality of their mission.
The whole history and progress of Christianity verifies these two facts. There has been great Diversity in the numerous developments of the Christian religion which we find over the face of the whole earth, and it has often entailed deplorable strife. But Christian Unity has never ceased to be the fundamental principle of these different manifestations, and Universality has remained the ultimate aim of Christianity, in spite of the different methods which it has adopted and forms in which it has been clothed, as it has spread from land to land.