What are we to do for him and what are we to do for the modern man in our midst? We shall not have to go very far to search for those who still find the remedy in an elaborate and beautiful religious ceremonial; who will tell us that it is foolish to build our religious conviction upon mere personal experience: that we are rather to turn back to the experience of the Christian Church. We are to observe its ordinances perfectly. There are to be stated seasons of prayer: there are to be stated means of grace: [72] ]and through these, whether you feel any better for it or not, you will be brought into line with the experience of the Catholic Church and become partakers of Heavenly grace. I am far from denying that beautiful forms of worship, that stated seasons of prayer, or that time-honored ritual may have a real place in the spiritual experience of very many. Doubtless, these things have been of value in bringing numbers of souls into the Kingdom of God, and will still be so. To me it seems, however, that they are fraught with great danger. Especially at the present time, when men intensely desire reality, they are apt to become impatient with the forms of a bygone age, however zealously they may be followed by some of their contemporaries. And, on the other hand, there are those who are too readily content with the outward and allow the mere forms of religion to salve the uneasy conscience. Was there, I wonder, ever a time when men needed more than they do to-day a clear summons into a life of spiritual reality and of personal intimate knowledge of God? [73] ]Can we summon them back as did our forefathers? Have we the message that they had? Can we say, as did Francis Howgill, “The Lord appeared daily to us to our astonishment, amazement and great admiration, insomuch that we often said one to another with great joy of heart, ‘What! Is the Kingdom of God come to be with men?’” The message sent forth by the Edinburgh Conference to the whole Church of Christ called her to realize that “God is demanding of us all a new order of life ... that He is greater, more loving, nearer and more available for our help and comfort than any man has dreamed.” If there was one thing which the Society of Friends was called into existence to proclaim, it was this very truth. Are we proclaiming it to-day? And, for the non-Christian world, how great is the danger of substituting one set of ceremonies for another. To those who have been in the habit of trusting to such barren rites as the burning of paper money, the washing in the Ganges and the sacred but often most unholy feasts, how easy it is to allow the [74] ]burning of incense or the rites of Baptism or the Holy Communion to take the same place in their thoughts and to be trusted for salvation or merit in the same way. In fact, one of our own missionaries in Ceylon was a man who had, for some years, worked in connection with another Society, and who had found that he was in constant difficulty because he was building up with one hand what he had to remove with the other. He came to the conclusion that, if he was to help men into a personal experience of Christ, he must take away entirely all possibility of trusting to outward rites, and preach to them the simple Quaker message. When the Friend missionaries in China met after the West China Conference to consider the way in which we might express in a few words the contribution of Friends towards the doctrine and practice of a Union Church, they drew up a brief statement which contains the following words under the heading of “sacraments.” These words are intended to convey the essence of the Quaker position on this point.
[75] 1. “The Pre-eminence of the Spiritual Experience.
2. “The Spiritual Experience may be realized independently of any special occasion, rite, or mediating person, except our Lord.
3. “Membership of the Church of Christ is of such a character that any outward recognition fails adequately to determine it.”
If the complete Christian message is to be given, if the Christian Church is to enter fully into an understanding of the mind of the Master, this aspect of truth needs to be emphasized, not only by words but by lives, and not only by the lives of individuals but by that added emphasis which comes through the existence of a corporate Body, whose very existence depends upon the validity of this tremendous fact. Our position as a Society does depend upon this truth, and out of it grow many other of our special contributions, if not all. We are set in the world of to-day to testify to a truth the enunciation of which has never been more urgently or [76] ]more widely needed. The whole Church of Christ should be sounding forth this message. She needs, therefore, a body of persons who stand for the principle that God deals directly with every soul of man, ever challenging the spirit of man to rest in nothing short of direct personal intercourse with God.
IV.
No one can be blind to the way in which every detail of our life is being modified by the many new inventions which accelerate the rate of living. We crowd into a single day more than our forefathers could put into a week. The express train, the telegraph and the telephone, the typewriter, the multiplied devices for saving time—all these things are speeding up life to the point at which the time for meditation and quiet is crowded out. This is surely a great and growing danger of which none of us is wholly unconscious.
I have been surprised to find in how many different circles there is at the present time a feeling of dissatisfaction with the [77] ]forms of worship which have for long been regarded as sufficiently satisfactory. I know a number of cases where, in high church circles, prominent people are feeling after something more akin to a Quaker Meeting than anything else. I am also intimately associated with some of the most living movements in my own country, in which meetings have been held on the same lines. This does not mean that great value does not still attach to regular arranged services. No doubt the vast majority of those who attend the services of the Anglican Church are still finding out that their spiritual needs are met thereby; but, there are others, and some of them are choice spirits, who feel the need of more liberty and who crave for more stillness in their worship. They are coming to recognize the great danger of the regular pre-arranged service such as is usual in most other denominations. They fear, perhaps, the invasion of the sanctuary by the spirit of rush and hurry.
Turning to the mission field, I could quote many examples which show the way [78] ]in which the Quaker form of worship appeals to some of those who are being brought out of heathenism. I think of one young man, a close personal friend of my own in China, who, having attended one or two Friends’ Meetings, came to us and urged us, at a very early stage in our mission work in Chengtu, to establish a regular Friends’ Meeting in addition to the ordinary mission services; and I recall with keen satisfaction the experiment which we made and the true worship into which Chinese and English together entered and the helpful and inspired ministry which arose out of it. A leading Indian Christian, describing the establishment of the National Missionary Society of India, explained to a Friend the way in which the Christians had met together for united worship, sitting as he said often as much as half an hour in silence and then breaking out, as prompted by the Spirit, into prayer and praise. “We,” he said, “find this most helpful; it means a great deal to us, and we have meetings of this kind before every one of our business sessions; but,” he [79] ]continued, “you won’t be able to understand it; it is so different from your English ways.” You can imagine his surprise on being told that he had almost exactly described the way in which the Friend to whom he was speaking habitually worshiped. Not long ago I took a friend of mine to Meeting. He was a man who had spent some years in India and had become intimately associated with a number of Indian students. After Meeting he asked me if our Meetings were open to the public; because, if so, he would like to bring some of his Indian friends to Meeting, as he felt it was exactly the thing which would help them.
It seems to me that, in the forms of worship in other Churches, we have either on the one hand a united act of worship which is to some extent formal, as when the congregation joins in the singing of a hymn or in a set prayer; or else on the other hand we have an individual act which is not formal but inspired, as when a man filled with a message from God delivers it to the congregation. [80] ]I know no other form of worship which fulfils my idea of a united act inspired of God. As we wait together upon Him we are together called into His Holy presence. The silence represents to us not merely the touch of each individual spirit with the Spirit of God; it represents rather the uniting of our spirits together in harmony with His Spirit. Thus are we privileged to understand something of that true Communion of the Saints which is to be fully experienced in the life beyond. A Friends’ Meeting filled with the sense of the presence of God is, to my mind, one of the chief contributions which Friends ought to be making to the life of the Church of Christ. This ideal was well expressed by T. R. Glover in the Swarthmore Lecture.