every loyal experience bear witness.

Now such sorrows, such idealised evils, which are so interwoven with
good that if the precious grief were wholly removed from existence,
the courage, the fidelity, the spiritual self-possession, the peace
through and in and beyond tribulation which such trials alone make
possible, would also be removed--they surely show us that the
abstract principle: "Evil ought to be abolished," is false. They show
us that the divine will also must be made perfect through suffering.
Since we can comprehend the meaning of such experiences only through
resolute action, through courage, through loyalty, through the power
of the spirit, they in no wise justify sloth, or mere passivity, or
mystical idleness. The active dealing with such sorrow gives, as James
himself once well asserts, a new dimension to life. No experiences go
further than do these to show us how, in our loyalty and in our
courage, we are becoming one with the master of life, who through
sorrow overcomes.

Let man, the destroyer, then remember that there is one ill which he
could not destroy, even if he were God, without also destroying all
the spiritual prowess in which all those rejoice who, inspired by an
ambition infinitely above that of Achilles, long {254} to be one with
God through bearing and overcoming the sorrows of a world.

We have thus indicated a source of insight. To tell more about what it
reveals would at once lead me, as you see, close to the most vital of
all Christian teachings, the doctrine of the Atonement. But such a
study belongs elsewhere.

{255}

VII

THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT AND THE INVISIBLE CHURCH

{256}

{257}

VII

THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT AND THE INVISIBLE CHURCH

My present and concluding lecture must begin with some explanations of
what I mean by the term "The Unity of the Spirit." Then I shall have
to define my use of the term "The Invisible Church." Thereafter, we
shall be free to devote ourselves to the consideration of a source of
religious insight as omnipresent as it is variously interpreted by
those who, throughout all the religious world, daily appeal to its
guidance. The outcome of our discussion may help some of you, as I
hope, to turn your attention more toward the region where the greatest
help is to be found in the cultivation of that true loyalty which, if
I am right, is the heart and core of every high