The saints, whether canonised or uncanonised by authority, are the common heritage of all who are striving to find their lives dominated by the same purpose; they are a constant unifying influence throughout the world, even though their messages differ as greatly as they often have done in the past.
As the different Christian communities frankly face the unconquered evils in the world about them, as their individual members set themselves to wrestle against the selfish instincts in their own lives, and to become more effective agents of peace and goodwill amongst their neighbours and worthier citizens of the state, they will find themselves working side by side with allies they had not hitherto known; in extending the bounds of [p.154] knowledge and the rule of a kindlier law, sharing the same spirit of sacrifice, facing the same difficulties, they will be united by more than a common hope, they will feel within them the inspiration of the same spirit.
If then the new spirit making for co-operation and truer understanding of each other which is already at work amongst the different churches is to have fuller influence, do we not need to set out with a new enthusiasm upon the common task which awaits us at home and abroad, and to work out together new applications of the social teaching of the Christian Church? For many, this will come along the lines of political and municipal action, in using what powers and duties the law already gives us, as well as in making better laws or claiming extended facilities for communal action.
But however much the powers and functions of the state may be altered and extended, there are vast regions which must for ever lie outside its domain: evils which laws and bye-laws cannot control, where the mysterious forces of personality have play, and the healing spiritual influences may work, which come with the direct contact of goodness and unselfishness, upon the broken and bruised failures of humanity. The state may punish wrong-doing, it may prevent particular acts of crime, it may confine its hardened criminals within the walls of a prison. It cannot convert them from themselves, it cannot redeem them. The state may give pensions to old age, and make [p.155] provision for the sick, the blind and the maimed, the epileptic, the lunatic, the idiot and the feeble-minded. It cannot bring to these darkened lives what most they need, the sunlight of human love and comradeship, the healing influence of an atmosphere of prayer and of unselfish service in which they may come themselves into touch with the Centre and Source of this pure and cleansing stream of good.
This must be once again the task of the Church, as it was in the best days of the monasteries, the guilds and confraternities of the middle ages. We need to have a fresh Crusade, not to conquer any far-off enemy, but against our apathy towards the social evils in our midst. Can we not hope to see a network of new guilds and brotherhoods, settlements, houses of peace and healing, covering the length and breadth of the land, where men and women will sacrifice some portion at least of their lives, giving of their work and leisure to this task? Some will afford a shelter to the outcasts of society, who are driven now from prison to casual ward, and from workhouse to jail, for whom the commercial world has no use, to whom the law offers nothing but threats and penalties: others will provide training for boys or girls who have been committed to industrial schools, or will offer a fresh start to those who have fallen into serious crime: there will be some which will try to provide a home and work for the weaklings, or those who are prevented by mental or physical defect from [p.156] holding their own in the ordinary streams of life. Others again will offer an asylum to sickness, helplessness and old age. Centres of prayer, as well as centres of work, they will be the schools of saints, where men in serving the needy in many different ways, will all the while be brought nearer to the ultimate reunion of Christendom and of humanity.
[1] The words of Celsus ring strangely in our ears after these seventeen centuries and more: "You may hear all those who differ so widely, and who assail each other in their disputes with the most shameless language, uttering the words, 'The world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world'" (Origen, "Contra Celsum," v. § 64; and cf. iii § 12).
[2] "Les Apotres," p. 56.
[3] i Cor. xiv. 24, 25
[4] xlii. 4, 5.