le only if they are saints. The
saints are detached from everything and attached to Christ, so that
Christ incarnates His spirit in them. Not we, but Christ in us, is
infallible.

Let the people of the Eastern Church stick to their Christian ideal of
saintliness. Their interpretation of the Christian spirit may be the
best and truest. Yet the ideal must become flesh. Let them not be proud
of their not having pride, and exclusive because God chose them to
understand the bottomless deepness of the esoteric Christianity. By
pride towards the proud and by exclusiveness they may spoil and darken
their ideals and remain in the dark.

Let all the Churches feel their unity in the ideal spirit of
saintliness. But if that is difficult for them, let them first feel
their unity in sinfulness, in committed sins and crimes, in their
nakedness and poverty. Just to start with, this first step seems
absolutely necessary. Never any great saint became saintly unless he
first thought himself equal in impurity and sinfulness with all other
human beings. The Churches must go the way of the saints. Their way is
the only infallible one.

THE ONLY NECESSARY EXCLUSIVENESS OF THE CHURCH

When you deeply search in history about the causes of the strength of
the primitive Church and of the weakness and decay of the modern Church,
you will come to a very clear and simple conclusion.

1. The primitive Church was inclusive as to its forms, but exclusive as
to its spirit.

2. The modern Church has been exclusive as to its forms, but inclusive
as to its spirit.

The primitive Church was very puritanic concerning the Christian spirit.
She was not particular as to the vessels in which to pour the new wine,
but she was extremely particular as to the wine itself. She borrowed the
vessels in Judaea, Alexandria, Athens, Rome, but she never borrowed wine.
The Christian spirit and the pagan spirit were just like two opposite
poles, like white and black, or day and night. The Church was conscious
of it, and jealously watchful that no drop of any foreign spirit should
be mixed with the precious spirit of the New Gospel. There existed no
thought of compromise, and no idea of inclusiveness whatever regarding
the spirit. The terrific conflict of Christianity and Paganism through
centuries sprang from the irreconcilability of two different spirits.
Were the Church as inclusive as to the spirit as she was to forms,
doctrines, customs and