and became the Church of Christ,
dominated by His living Spirit and organizing itself for work, worship
and teaching, out of the materials at hand among the peoples where it
spread.

We have taken this brief retrospect over the origin of the Church not
because it is important for us to discover the precise forms the Church
took at the start and reproduce them. It is nowhere hinted in the New
Testament that the leaders of these little communities are laying down
methods to be followed for all time. Indeed, they had no such thought,
for they expected Jesus to return in their lifetime and set up His
Kingdom; and they gave scant attention to forms of organization and
doctrine that would last but a few years. Nor is it reasonable to
suppose that forms which were suited to little groups of people meeting
in somebody's house, waiting for their Lord's return, will answer for
great bodies of Christians organizing themselves to Christianize the
world. No institution can remain changeless in a changing world. "The
one immutable factor in institutions," writes Professor Pollard, "is
their infinite mutability." Almost all the divisive factors in
Christendom are taken out of the past, by those who claim that a certain
polity or creed or practice is that authoritatively prescribed for all
time, by Christ Himself, or by His Spirit through His personally
appointed apostles. The chief question for the Church to decide, when it
considers its organization, is--What must we carry on from the past, and
what can we profitably leave behind?

The Church of Christ has always been and is one undivided living
organism, composed of those who are so vitally joined to Jesus Christ
that they share His life with God and men. Our bodies are continually
changing in their constituent elements, but remain the same bodies; the
spirit of life assimilates and builds into its living structure that
which enters the body. The Church of Christ in the world is constantly
changing its components as the generations come and go; each new
generation is in some respects unlike its predecessor in thought, in
usage, in feeling; but the continuity of the Spirit maintains the
identity of the Body of Christ. We must carry forward the Spirit of
Christ, and keep unbroken the apostolic succession of spiritual men and
women, all of whom are divinely appointed priests unto God. We must
realize that, as members in the Body of Christ, each of us must fulfil
some function for the