transfer actual participation in government from the few to the many,
--a movement towards true Democracy, and that was precisely what was
about to happen in the Church. Her condition at present was one of
uncertainty, transition--she feared to let go wholly of the old, she
feared to embark upon the new. Just as the conservatives and politicians
feared to give up the representative system, the convention, so was she
afraid to abandon the synod, the council, and trust to man.

The light was coming slowly, the change, the rebirth of the Church by
gradual evolution. By the grace of God those who had laid the
foundations of the Church in which he stood, of all Protestantism, had
built for the future. The racial instinct in them had asserted itself,
had warned them that to suppress freedom in religion were to suppress it
in life, to paralyze that individual initiative which was the secret of
their advancement.

The new Church Universal, then, would be the militant, aggressive body of
the reborn, whose mission it was to send out into the life of the nation
transformed men and women who would labour unremittingly for the Kingdom
of God. Unity would come--but unity in freedom, true Catholicity. The
truth would gradually pervade the masses--be wrought out by them. Even
the great evolutionary forces of the age, such as economic necessity,
were acting to drive divided Christianity into consolidation, and the
starving churches of country villages were now beginning to combine.

No man might venture to predict the details of the future organization of
the united Church, although St. Paul himself had sketched it in broad
outline: every worker, lay and clerical, labouring according to his gift,
teachers, executives, ministers, visitors, missionaries, healers of sick
and despondent souls. But the supreme function of the Church was to
inspire--to inspire individuals to willing service for the cause, the
Cause of Democracy, the fellowship of mankind. If she failed to inspire,
the Church would wither and perish. And therefore she must revive again
the race of inspirers, prophets, modern Apostles to whom this gift was
given, going on their rounds, awaking cities and arousing whole
country-sides.

But whence--it might be demanded by the cynical were the prophets to
come? Prophets could not be produced by training and education; prophets
must be born. Reborn,--that was the word. Let the Church have faith.
Once her Cause were perceived, o