roportions of the task before
them are now more clearly grasped. The difficulty of overtaking the task
even when united, and the impossibility of discharging it effectively
while divided are also more apparent. But the demand for unity and the
power of co-operation have also been strengthened by the men and women
who have gone abroad under the influence of the Student Volunteer
Missionary Union. High Churchmen and Nonconformist having learnt to work
together on a Christian Student executive do not find it difficult to
co-operate, where opportunity offers, in India or China. A
half-involuntary revolution of sentiment is proceeding under our eyes.
The strength of the new spirit of co-operation was revealed in the
Edinburgh Conference of 1910. That date will stand out as supremely
significant in the growth of a new Catholicism in the West.

We have so far been concerned with influences making for a deeper sense
of unity within the Christian Church. But if we attempt a wider survey,
we shall discover that religious thought and feeling in the West,
whether definitely Christian or no, possess some common characteristics,
bear the impress of convictions which are ever struggling for
expression.

First among these characteristic features of religious thought in the
West I would place faith in the solidarity of mankind. The origin of
this faith probably passes beyond our analysis. I should suspect that
there is a universal impulse stimulating this belief which I should be
inclined to regard as instinctive. Yet it has certainly found fuller
expression in the West than in the civilization of India or China. It is
possible to point to traditions, to philosophies, and to particular
events which have carried this faith in human solidarity deep into the
consciousness of the West. Dr. Prichard, whose scientific labours, we
were told in an earlier lecture, refuted the heresy of polygenism, was
moved to undertake his inquiries by a desire to maintain the accuracy of
the Mosaic tradition as to the common origin of mankind. It is a little
curious to reflect that illusory anthropology, accepted on the authority
of Moses and of Rousseau, the belief in Adam, and the belief in the free
and happy savage, have perhaps done more than scientific research into
primitive culture to maintain our faith in human brotherhood and
equality. We must not, however, attach too much weight to the story of
Adam. The Western sense of the dignity of ordinary man