on, according to the old definition, is the bond
which binds the soul of man to God.[1] It begins as the relation of a
tribe to its God. Personal religious conviction grows out of the tribal
(corporate) religious bond. But the social instinct is strong. Men
owning the same religious convictions will naturally draw together into
some sort of association. Using the word religion to cover all the
imperfect ways in which men have felt after God, we note that in every
case men have found the need alike of a teacher and of fellowship. Thus
the idea of a church as "the pillar and ground of the truth" (1 Tim.
iii. 15) corresponds to some of the primary needs of man. Even at
Stonehenge, the oldest relic of prehistoric religion in England, where
we picture in imagination the worship of the rising sun, nature worship
degraded to a horrible depth by human sacrifice, we find struggling for
expression the idea of a corporate religious life. From all the lower
levels where superstition and cruelty reign, from the depths of fear
inspired by fetichism, we look on to the higher level of Judaism as the
progressive religion of the old world. This does not mean that we shut
our eyes to the ideals of Greek philosophers, with whom morality was
constantly outgrowing religion. "The vision of an ideal state which the
master-mind of Plato contemplated, but thought too good ever to become
true in actual realization, is full of aspirations which the Christian
Church claims to satisfy. The problems of the relations of the life of
the State and the life of the individual, which Aristotle ever suggests
and never solves, are problems with which the Christian Church has at
least attempted to deal."[2]

From the beginning of the history of the Jewish race the idea that the
world is a kingdom under the rule of God began to find expression. The
conception of Israel as "a kingdom of priests and an holy nation" (Exod.
xix. 6) bore witness to it. The idea of kingship from the first was that
of a ruler representing God. As time went on and even the dynasty of
David failed in the persons of unworthy representatives to maintain this
ideal, both psalmists and prophets taught the people to look beyond the
earthly kingdom to the spiritual kingdom of which it was a type. But
even Isaiah tended to think of the spiritual life and worship of the
nation as a department of political organization only, controlled by the
king and his princes. It was reserved for Jeremiah, i