against a majority of
bishops who would, if they had dared Constantine's displeasure, have
given the conscience freer play, to-day the difficulty has, practically
disappeared. The creed is there in the prayer book, and so long as it
remains we are at liberty to interpret the ancient philosophy in which it
is written--and which in any event could not have been greatly improved
upon at that time--in our own modern way, as I am trying to explain it to
you.

"Christ was identified with the Logos, or Word, which must have had a
meaning for all time, before and after its, complete revelation. And
this is what the Nicene Creed is trying to express when it says,
'Begotten of his Father before all worlds.' In other words, the purpose
which Christ revealed always existed. The awkward expression of the
ancients, declaring that he 'came down' for our salvation (enlightenment)
contains a fact we may prove by experience, if we accept the meaning he
put upon existence, and adopt this meaning as our scheme of life. But
we: must first be quite clear, as: to this meaning. We may and do
express all this differently, but it has a direct bearing on life. It is
the doctrine of the Incarnation. We begins to perceive through it that
our own incarnations mean something, and that our task is to discover
what they do mean--what part in the world purpose we are designed to play
here.

"Incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary is an emphasis on the
fact that man born of woman may be divine. But the ignorant masses of
the people of the Roman Empire were undoubtedly incapable of grasping a
theory of the Incarnation put forward in the terms of Greek philosophy;
while it was easy for them, with their readiness to believe in nature
miracles, to accept the explanation of Christ's unique divinity as due to
actual, physical generation by the Spirit. And the wide belief in the
Empire in gods born in this way aided such a conception. Many thousands
were converted to Christianity when a place was found in that religion
for a feminine goddess, and these abandoned the worship of Isis, Demeter,
and Diana for that of the Virgin Mary. Thus began an evolution which is
still going on, and we see now that it was impossible that the world
should understand at once the spiritual meaning of life as Christ taught
it--that material facts merely symbolize the divine. For instance, the
Gospel of John has been called the philosophical or spiritual gospel.
And in spi