idual action. If the prayerful attitude of
my fellow worshippers helps me to pray better, surely it is a very mean
kind of conceit on my part which would prompt me to despise their help,
and refuse to acknowledge Creative Spirit acting on me through other
men? It is one of the most beautiful features of a real and living
corporate religion, that within it ordinary people at all levels help
each other to be a little more supernatural than would have been alone.
I do not now speak of individuals possessing special zeal and special
aptitude; though, as the lives of the Saints assure us, even the best of
these fluctuate, and need social support at times. Anyhow such persons
of special spiritual aptitude, as life is now, are as rare as persons of
special aptitude in other walks of life. But that which we seek for the
life of to-day and of the future, is such a planning of it as shall give
all men their spiritual chance. And it is abundantly clear upon all
levels of life, that men are chiefly formed and changed by the power of
suggestion, sympathy and imitation; and only reach full development when
assembled in groups, giving full opportunity for the benevolent action
of these forces. So too in the life of the Spirit, incorporation plays a
part which nothing can replace. Goodness and devotion are more easily
caught than taught; by association in groups, holy and strong
souls--both living and dead--make their full gift to society, weak,
undeveloped, and arrogant souls receive that of which they are in need.
On this point we may agree with a great ecclesiastical scholar of our
own day that "the more the educated and intellectual partake with
sympathy of heart in the ordinary devotions and pious practices of the
poor, the higher will they rise in the religion of the Spirit."[124]

Yet this family life of the ideal religious institution, with its
reasonable and bracing discipline, its gift of shelter, its care for
tradition, its habit-formation and group consciousness--all this is
given, as we may as well acknowledge, at the price which is exacted by
all family life; namely, mutual accommodation and sacrifice, place made
for the childish, the dull, the slow, and the aged, a toning-down of the
somewhat imperious demands of the entirely efficient and clear-minded, a
tolerance of imperfection. Thus for these efficient and clear-minded
members there is always, in the church as in the family, a perpetual
opportunity of humility, self-e