ety of
opinion, partly to ancestry, and partly to historical circumstance;
some of these divisions are international in extent; but through every
communion runs the line of cleavage between conservatism and
liberalism in the interpretation of custom and creed. The tendency of
the times is to minimize differences and to bring together divergent
types in federation or union on the ground that the church needs unity
in order to use its strength, and that religion can exert its full
energy in the midst of society only as the friction of too much
machinery is removed.

305. =Religious Education.=--A third function of the church is
religious education. This function of education in religion belongs
theoretically to the church, in common with the home and the school,
but the tendency has been to turn the religious education of children
over to the school of the church. The minister, priest, or rabbi is
the chief teacher of faith and duty, but in the Sunday-school the
laity also has found instruction of the young people to be one of its
functions. Instruction by both of these is supplemented by schools of
a distinctly religious type and by a religious press. As long as
society at large does not undertake to perform this function of
religious education, the church conceives it to be one of its chief
tasks to teach as well as to inspire the human will, by interpreting
the best religious thought that the centuries of history have handed
down, and for this purpose it uses the latest scientific knowledge
about the human mind and tries to devise improved methods to make
education more effective. Education is the twin art of evangelization.

306. =Promotion of Social Reform.=--As an institution hoary with age,
the church is naturally conservative, and it has been slow to champion
the various social reforms that have been proposed as panaceas. It has
been quite as much concerned with a future existence as with the
present, and has been prompt to point to heavenly bliss as a balance
for earthly woe. It has concerned itself with the soul rather than the
body, and with individual salvation rather than social reconstruction.
It is only within a century that the modern church has given much
attention to promoting social betterment as one of its principal
functions, but within a few years the conscience of church people has
been goading them to undertake a campaign of social welfare. Other
institutions have needed the help of the church, a