re innumerable ways in which
we have progressed far beyond them. But character, fidelity, loyalty
to conscience and to God--are we sure of progress there?

To hear some people talk, one would suppose that progress is simply a
matter of chronology. That one man or generation comes in time after
another is taken as sufficient evidence that the latter has of course
superseded the earlier. Do we mean that because Tennyson came after
Shelly he is therefore the greater poet? What has chronology to do
with spiritual quality and creativeness, which always must rise from
within, out of the abysmal depths of personality? Professor Gilbert
Murray, thinking primarily in a realm outside religion altogether,
chastises this cheap and superficial claim of advance in spiritual life:

"As to Progress, it is no doubt a real fact. To many of us it is a
truth that lies somewhere near the roots of our religion. But it is
never a straight march forward; it is never a result that happens of
its own accord. It is only a name for the mass of accumulated human
effort, successful here, baffled there, misdirected and driven astray
in a third region, but on the whole and in the main producing some
cumulative result. I believe this difficulty about Progress, this fear
that in studying the great teachers of the past we are in some sense
wantonly sitting at the feet of savages, causes real trouble of mind to
many keen students. The full answer to it would take us beyond the
limits of this paper and beyond my own range of knowledge. But the
main lines of the answer seem to me clear. There are in life two
elements, one transitory and progressive, the other comparatively if
not absolutely non-progressive and eternal, and the soul of man is
chiefly concerned with the second. Try to compare our inventions, our
material civilization, our stores of accumulated knowledge, with those
of the age of Aeschylus or Aristotle or St. Francis, and the comparison
is absurd. Our superiority is beyond question and beyond measure. But
compare any chosen poet of our age with Aeschylus, any philosopher with
Aristotle, any saintly preacher with St. Francis, and the result is
totally different. I do not wish to argue that we have fallen below
the standard of those past ages; but it is clear that we are not
definitely above them. The things of the spirit depend on will, on
effort, on aspiration, on the quality of the individual soul, and not
on discoveries a